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OUT OF THE SHADOW 



ROSE COHEN 




JACOB ADLER IN KING LEAR. 



OUT OF 
THE SHADOW 

BY 

ROSE COHEN 



ILLUSTRATED BY 

WALTER JACK DUNCAN 




NEW ^SJT YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






Copyright, 1918, 
By George H. Dorom Company 



Printed in the United States of America 

OCT lOlyia 
©GLA506131 



TO 
LEONORA O'REILLY 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Jacob adler in " king lear" Frontispiece 

PAGE 
OUR HOME WAS A LOG HOUSE COVERED WITH A STRAW 

ROOF *2 

THE DROSKY IS AT THE DOOR 50 

ALL DAY WE SAT OR WALKED ABOUT IN THE SUN . 62 

I SAW THE JEWISH MEN HURRYING HOME FROM WORK IOO 

WITH BABY ON ONE ARM, A BUNDLE ON THE OTHER . 142 ' 

HE FLUNG THEM FROM A STRANGE ROOF 1 66 v 

WOMEN AT THE PUSH-CARTS HAGGLED MORE AND MORE 

DESPERATELY OVER A CENT 1 88 " 

HE STOOD STIRRING THE CAN WITH A STICK .... 204 ' 

THIS WAS A "PIECE WORK" SHOP . 230 

HE AND MOTHER CARTED OVER THE FURNITURE ON A 

PUSH-CART 266 

IT WAS A ONE-WINDOW STORE 302 



VU 



PART ONE 



PART ONE 



I was born in a small Russian village. Our home was 
a log house, covered with a straw roof. The front part 
of the house overlooked a large clear lake, and the back, 
open fields. 

The first time I became aware of my existence was on 
a cold winter night. My father and I were sitting on top 
of our red brick oven. The wind, whistling through the 
chimney and rattling the ice-covered windows, frightened 
me, and so I pressed close to my father and held his hand 
tightly. He was looking across the room where mother's 
bed stood curtained off with white sheets. Every now 
and then I heard a moan coming from the bed, and each 
time I felt father's hand tremble. 

Appearing and disappearing behind the bed curtains, 
I saw my little old great-aunt, in a red quilted petticoat 
and white, close-fitting cap. Whenever she appeared and 
caught father's eye, she smiled to him, a sweet, crooked 
smile. Finally, I recall hearing a few sound slaps, fol- 
lowed by a baby's cry and aunt calling out loudly, "It's 
a girl again." 

About three years passed. With my little sister as 
companion, I recall many happy days we spent together. 
In the summer we picked field mushrooms at the back of 
the house or played near the lake and watched the women 
bleaching their linens. I was happiest in the morning 
when I first went out of doors. To see the sunshine, the 
blue sky, and the green fields, filled my soul with unspeak- 

9 



io OUT OF THE SHADOW 

able happiness. At such moments I would run away 
from my little sister, hide myself in a favourite bush and 
sit for a while listening to the singing of the birds and 
the rustling of the leaves. Then I would jump up and 
skip about like a young pony and shout out of pure joy. 

In the winter we cut and made doll's clothing. Father 
was a tailor, and as soon as we were able to hold a needle 
we were taught to sew. Mother taught us how to spin, 
grandfather made toys out of wood for us, and grand- 
mother told us stories. 

These were the pleasant days during the winter. But 
there were others, days that were cold and dark and 
dreary, when we children had to stay a great part of 
the time on top of the oven, and no one came, not even 
a beggar. But when a beggar did come our joy was 
boundless. 

I remember that grandfather would hasten to meet 
the poor man, as we called him, at the door with a hearty 
handshake and a welcoming smile, saying, "Peace be 
with you, brother. Take off your knapsack and stay 
over night." 

Mother would put on a fresh apron and begin to pre- 
pare something extra for supper. And grandmother, 
who was blind, and always sat in bed knitting a stocking, 
would stop for a moment at the sound of the stranger's 
voice to smooth the comforter on her bed. Her pale 
face, so indifferent a minute before, would light up as 
if with new life, while we children, fearing, if seen idle, 
to be rebuked and sent into a distant corner from where 
we could neither see nor hear the stranger, would sud- 
denly find a dozen things to do. 

On such a night after supper there was something of 
the holiday spirit in our home. We would light the lamp 
instead of a candle and place it on a milk jug in the centre 



OUT OF THE SHADOW n 

of the table. Then we all sat around it, grandmother 
with her knitting, mother with her sewing, all of us lis- 
tening eagerly to "the stories the stranger told. But more 
surprised even than any of us children about the wonder- 
ful things going on in the world, was grandfather. He 
would sit listening with his lips partly open and his eyes 
large with wonder. Every now and then he would call 
out, "Ach, brother, I never would have even dreamt 
such things were possible !" 

At bedtime grandfather would give up his favourite 
bed, the bench near the oven, to the stranger. Mother 
would give him the largest and softest of her pillows. 
And grandmother would give him a clean pair of socks 
to put on in the morning. 

The next day after he was gone we felt as after a 
pleasant holiday when we had to put on our old clothes 
and turn in to do the every day things. 

Yes, I recall happy days, and sad days — days of sor- 
row which then were very real. 

Across the road from our home, about a quarter of 
a block to the left, was a cemetery. Over each grave 
stood a wooden cross, and about the middle of each one 
there were tied little aprons of red, green and yellow 
material. On windy days I loved to watch these flutter- 
ing in the wind and whenever I looked through half- 
closed eyes they took form and became like coloured 
birds hovering over the graves. 

One windy day, at dusk, I went out to the middle of 
the road to watch the little aprons flying in the breeze 
and saw something red lying on the road near the ceme- 
tery. I guessed it to be an apron blown away by the wind. 

How beautiful my doll would look in one of these, 
thought I. But how could I get it ? I was in mortal fear 
of the cemetery. Although mother had often pointed out 



12 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

how peacefully the dead slept and had said that she 
wished the living were as little to be feared, I never went 
near them. But now I wanted the little red apron for 
my doll. The longer I looked at it the more I wanted it. 
Finally, I decided to risk getting it. Slowly, step by 
step, I walked toward it, keeping my eyes on the graves 
and repeating softly to myself, to keep up courage, 
"There is nothing to fear; there is nothing to fear," 
until I reached it. When I had it in my hand I 
stood still for a moment. The very thought of turn- 
ing my back on the dead made my hair stand on end. I 
walked backwards a few steps; suddenly I turned and 
ran. As I ran I felt my heart beating violently against 
my ribs ; my feet were as heavy as lead and the distance 
to the house seemed endless. But I ran fast; so fast, 
that when I reached the door I could not stop. I fell 
against it, it flew open and I fell headlong into the house. 
Mother came running over to pick me up. When I re- 
gained my breath, I told her what had happened and 
showed her the little apron which I still held in my hand. 
As usual, sister, who wanted everything she saw and to 
whom I was made to give in because she was younger, 
came over and asked for it and, as usual, I refused. She 
tried to snatch it from my hand but I pushed her away. 
She fell and struck her head against a bench. Then 
father came over with a strap and told us to kiss each 
other or we should be spanked. Mother looked at me with 
tears in her eyes, knowing, no doubt, what would happen, 
and she left the room. Grandmother called to me to hide 
behind her back, but I would not do that. My sister 
looked at me, then at the strap, and came over to kiss me. 
But I could not at such moments, neither would I let her 
kiss me. So I was spanked and the little apron was taken 
away from me and given to her. 




OUR HOUSE WAS A LOG HOUSE, COVERED WITH A STRAW ROOF. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 13 



II 



When I was about eleven years old there were five 
of us children. One day father went to town and came 
back with a stranger, who, we were told, would teach 
us to read and write. Our teacher was a young man of 
middle height, thin, dark and pale. He had an agree- 
able voice, and when he sang it was pleasant to hear 
him. When we did our lessons well his eyes brightened 
and his tightly closed lips would relax a little. But when 
we did poorly he was angry and would scold us. 

As soon as I learned how to read I would sit for hours 
and read to my grandmother. Besides the Bible, we had 
a few religious books. I read these again and again, and 
became very devout. I read the morning, noon and eve- 
ning prayers, and sometimes I fasted for half a day. 
Then I became less stubborn and the quarrels between 
sister and myself became less frequent. 

One day father left home on a three days' journey. 
When he returned he did not look like himself. His 
face was pale and he seemed to be restless. During the 
three days that followed, father went out only at night. 
I also noticed that mother collected all of father's clothes, 
and, as she sat mending them, I often saw her tears fall 
on her work. On the third night I awoke and saw father 
bending over me. He wore his heavy overcoat, his hat 
was pulled well over his forehead and a knapsack was 
strapped across his shoulders. Before I had time to say 
a word he kissed me and went to grandmother's bed and 
woke her up. "I am going away, mother." She sat up, 
rubbed her eyes and asked in a sleepy voice, "Where?" 
"To America," father whispered hoarsely. 



i 4 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

For a moment there was silence; then grandmother 
uttered a cry that chilled my blood. My mother, who sat 
in a corner weeping, went to her and tried to quiet her. 
The noise woke grandfather and the children. We all 
gathered around grandmother's bed, and I heard father 
explaining the reason for his going. He said that he 
could not get a passport ( for a reason I could not under- 
stand at the time). And as no one may live in Russia 
even a week without a passport, he had to leave immedi- 
ately. His explanation did not comfort grandmother; 
she still sat crying and wringing her hands. After 
embracing us all, father ran out of the house, and grand- 
father ran after him into the snow with his bare feet. 
When he returned he sat down and cried like a little 
child. I spent the rest of the night in prayer for a safe 
journey for my father. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 15 



III 



As father's departure to America had to be kept secret 
until he was safe out of Russia, we had to bury our sor- 
row deep in our own hearts, and go about our work as if 
nothing unusual had happened. 

Mother and I sat at the window, sewing, and grand- 
father found relief in chopping wood. All day long his 
axe flashed in the sun and chips flew far and near. And 
even grandmother's tears, which were always ready, 
were kept back now as she sat on her bed, knitting a 
stocking and rocking the cradle with one foot, while sister 
seemed to be everywhere at once. It was then and for 
the first time that I realised something of her real worth. 
Those soft grey eyes of hers seemed to see every one's 
needs. When grandmother put her feet down on the 
floor and felt about for her slippers, it was sister who 
would find them and stick them on her toes. The same 
little woman of eight kept a little brother of five and a 
sister of two playing quietly in a corner. And even 
when they were hungry she would not let them disturb 
mother, but would cut some thick slices of black bread, 
dip them into water, sprinkle them with salt, and taking a 
bite of her slice, she would close her eyes and say, "M-m- 
m — what delicious cake!" In the evening, after supper, 
when grandfather would sit down near the stove staring 
sadly into the fire, she would climb up on his knee and 
plait his long grey beard into braids. Soothed by her 
gentle touches and childish prattle, he would fall asleep 
and forget his troubles for a while. 



16 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



IV 

So the days passed. 

One morning mother went to the postoffice and when 
she came back she looked as if she had suddenly aged. 
She took a postal card from her pocket and we all bent 
our heads over it and read : "I have been arrested while 
crossing the border and I am on my way home, walking 
the greater part of the way. If we pass through our 
village I shall ask the officer to let me stop home for a 
few minutes. Be brave and trust in God." At the news 
more tears were shed in our house than on the Day of 
Atonement. 

That night after the doors were barred and the win- 
dows darkened, grandmother, grandfather, and mother, 
with a three weeks' old baby in her arms, sat in the niche 
of our chimney, making plans to defeat the Tzar of 
Russia. 

The next day mother sent grandfather away on a visit. 
He was not a person to have around in case of trouble, 
for the very sight of brass buttons put him into such 
fright and confusion, that he would forget his own name. 
After he was gone mother went to town to see her 
brother and arrange for the escape. Then there was 
nothing left to do but wait for father's home-coming. I 
remember that I used to run out on the road many times 
a day to see if he were coming. 

One afternoon we were all startled at hearing some 
one stamping the snow off her feet at our door. I ran 
to the window and looked out. It was only Yana, a 
woman known in our village to be very clever and re- 
ligious, but unkind. I wondered at her coming for I 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 17 

knew that she and my mother were not on friendly terms. 
She came into the house and walking straight over to 
mother, who was bending over the cradle, she said in 
her usual voice, which was like a drake's, soft and hoarse, 
"Your husband is arrested ; I just saw him on the road !" 
Mother became so pale and looked so ill that I thought 
she would fall, but the next minute I saw her straighten 
herself, and putting her arm over the cradle as if to 
protect it, she said quietly and distinctly, "Yana, I hope 
you will live to carry better news." When Yana passed 
me on her way out of the house I thought her face looked 
more yellow than usual, and her black, large teeth further 
apart. 

After the woman was gone mother put on a cheerful 
face and busied herself laying the cloth and setting food 
on the table, and grandmother put on her best apron, 
father's last gift, and sat down near the table with her 
hands folded in her lap, waiting. We children stood at 
the window looking out. Soon we saw father open our 
gate. He was closely followed by Yonko, the sheriff, 
in his grey fur cap which he wore summer and winter, 
and grey coat tied with a red girdle. 

Father was limping and when he came nearer I saw 
how greatly he had changed. His face was thin and 
weatherbeaten, and his eyes had sunk deep into his head. 
At sight of us near the window his lips twitched, but the 
next moment we saw his own old smile light up his whole 
face. 

Our greeting and our conversation were quiet and re- 
strained. 

When father sat down at the table he said that he was 
very hungry but after taking a few mouthfuls he fell 
asleep. The peasant who sat near the stove resting his 
elbows on his knees and turning his cap between his 



18 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

hands, rose and wanted to wake father. "Oh, let him 
sleep a little while," mother entreated. "Impossible," said 
Yonko, "the roads are bad and we have to be in the next 
village before night falls." "Well, then just let him 
sleep until I bathe his feet." The man consented. Father's 
boots were worn and wet through, and were hard to get 
off, but he never woke while mother tugged away at 
them. At last they were off and the socks also. 

"Thank God that his mother is blind," she whispered, 
covering her face for a moment. Father's feet were 
red, blistered, and swollen. As she lifted them into the 
basin I saw her tears falling into the water. When I 
looked at Yonko he turned away quickly and became 
interested in a crack in the ceiling. 

Our parting like our greeting was restrained. Father 
embraced grandmother, then he smiled a quick farewell 
from the door and was gone. Sister and I ran out on 
the road and stood watching him until he looked a 
black speck against the white snow. Then we ran back 
to the house, she to help and I to pray. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 19 



With the exception of grandmother, I was the most 
pious and the most superstitious member of the family. 
In sickness or trouble, while the others turned to do 
practical things, I appealed to God for help. 

So it was on the day when father was led away to the 
next village. Knowing that he was to attempt an escape 
that very night, I felt that there was no time to be lost. 
Better to concentrate my mind on my prayers I climbed 
up on the stove and sat down in the darkest corner, fac- 
ing the wall. To shut out the children's voices I stuck 
my fingers into my ears and began to pray. But I could 
not put any heart into it. I felt, however, that if I only 
could pray with all my heart and soul, God would hear 
me. In despair, therefore, I let my mind dwell on my 
father. Again I saw him, weatherbeaten and care-worn, 
limping through the gate. Again I saw his lips twitch as 
when he tried to smile to us from the window. Then I 
recalled stories of cruelty to those who served in the 
army. I remembered Yonko, a strong young peasant, 
telling grandfather how he had been treated. One day, 
for some slight offence, he was struck such a powerful 
blow on the ear that he fell unconscious. 

Father will never survive such a blow, thought I. Once 
he goes to the army we will never see him again. How 
dark and desolate our home will be! 

With a pang of remorse I recalled how often I had 
been discontented. Only a while before I remembered 
having sulked for hours merely because I had no shoes 
of my own, and had to wear out old ones which were 
much too large and made an awful clatter as I walked. 



20 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

How sinful I had been to be discontented when we were 
all well and father was with us. "Oh, God, if Thou wilt 
spare my father, I will never wish for anything again! 
Never complain !" 

When I rose it was dark, the children were all in bed, 
and except for the squeak of the cradle as it swung 
back and forth, all was quiet. I knew that it was mother 
who sat up rocking the cradle. I longed to speak to her 
of the hope I felt but feared in case my feelings were 
deceiving me after all. 

I think it was the next day that a message came telling 
us that father had escaped from the constable in the next 
village. That was joy indeed though limited, for father 
was still on Russian soil and could be recaptured any 
minute. And so while we were waiting, fearing, hoping, 
another week or so passed. 

Two things I recall distinctly of that time. Grand- 
mother, believing children to be prophets, often asked us 
to predict the future. One day she asked my brother, a 
little serious-faced, wide-awake boy of six, who looked 
upon himself as one of the future great Rabbis, "Tell 
me, my child, will father reach America safely?" "Yes," 
he said with so much conviction in his voice that her face 
lit up with hope. From that moment she was more cheer- 
ful. The second thing is that there was an awful storm 
and the snow lay piled up almost as high as our windows. 
But on Friday it cleared. The sun came out bright and 
warm. "It is a good sign that it cleared in honour of 
Sabbath," said grandmother, turning her pale, thin face 
hopefully to the window. That afternoon we saw the 
mistress of the inn and postoffice walking up to her waist 
in snow, coming toward our house. "Nothing but a let- 
ter would bring her here on a day like this," mother cried 
and rushed out of the house. When she came back she 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 21 

had a letter but she stood in the middle of the room 
holding it in her hand as though she feared to open it. 
"Look," said the post-mistress, pointing to the post mark. 
It was stamped Memel, Prussia. 

Mother ran to grandmother and they embraced, and 
stood so long and so silently with their faces hidden from 
us, that we children were frightened and begged them 
to speak to us. Then mother turned and caught us all 
into her arms with a cry of joy, while grandmother raised 
her tear-stained face to Heaven in silent prayer. 



22 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



VI 

Spring came. The snow which lay high all winter 
began to melt, and here and there green spots appeared. 
Then the dandelions began to show their yellow heads, 
and the storks came flying back to build their nests in the 
old stump in the cemetery. Hens, followed by groups 
of black and yellow headed chicks, walked about scratch- 
ing in the soft warm earth and cackling cheerfully. 

As for us, mother and grandmother having lived in 
fear and anxiety about father for thirteen years, and 
then having come near losing him, found it hard to be- 
lieve at first that he was really beyond the reach of 
Russia. But once they realised this fact they were as 
happy as they had never been before. 

Mother, who never sang except when rocking baby to 
sleep, and then only hummed, sang now as she went 
about her work. And grandmother spoke about America 
from morning till night. 

Having a lively imagination, she gave us her ideas of 
what she thought America was like, the kind of people 
father would be likely to meet, how soon he would find 
work, how much he would earn, and how soon he would 
be able to take his family over. Here she cried a good 
deal, saying, "If I had been told a year ago that my only 
son would go away to the other end of the world, and 
that I would continue to live knowing that I would never 
see him again, I would not have believed it possible. And 
yet it has come to pass and I am not only alive, but con- 
tented that he should be away. Ah, how strange is life 
and its ways !" Then she would dry her tears and begin 
to wonder how he would live without her care, who 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 23 

would look after his socks, and who would cover his feet 
on cold nights. But soon she consoled herself by saying, 
"Oh, but socks are cheap out there, as no doubt every- 
thing else must be, and they say that it is not as cold 
in America as in Russia." 

And we children were as happy as if we had been 
released from a dark, damp prison cell. It seemed to us 
that the lake was never so clear and blue or sparkled so 
brightly, and the birds never sang so gaily before. We 
ran about visiting one familiar place after another, un- 
able to stop long anywhere. 

I came to my bush where I hid so often when I wanted 
to be alone. As I stooped and parted the branches so as 
to hide more comfortably among them, I saw a small, 
half finished bird's nest. I picked it up and as I stood 
looking at it, it occurred to me how very near our home 
came to being broken up. So I put the nest back care- 
fully and went away. 

When grandfather came home we were shocked at 
the change in him. His hair and beard, grey before, had 
turned white, and his eyes, they were the trustful eyes of 
a child, had a strange questioning look in them. He had 
become quite deaf. But otherwise he was as sprightly 
as ever. 

Now the chief part of the support of the family fell 
to mother, and the rest of us helped. Grandmother 
knitted stockings for the women of the village. Of course 
the stockings had to be looked over, the lost stitches found 
and mended carefully. That was my work. 

Grandmother also peeled the potatoes for the house. 
These, too, I had to go over, and cut away the peelings 
she had left. I disliked this work and dropped many a 
tear on the potatoes. Then mother would say, "What, 
crying? So much the better, we won't need to salt the 



24 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

potatoes." And grandfather, after bringing the wood, 
building the fire, fetching water from the spring, would 
go to the village to see if there were any pots to mend. 

Grandfather had clever hands. He could do wonders 
with a penknife and a piece of wood. And in mending 
pots he was a perfect artist. And so whenever he walked 
through the village the women would call him into their 
homes, bless him for the pots he made whole, and fill his 
little bag, which he always carried upon his back, with 
potatoes, carrots, turnips or onions. On coming home 
he would look as happy as if he had a whole fortune in 
his bag. "Come, children, and see what I have," he would 
call out while still on the threshold. Then he 
would open his bag, take out a carrot, and holding it up 
high for our admiration, he would say, his face beaming, 
"Is it not a perfect beauty? And sweet and juicy! Just 
wait till you taste it!" Then he would scrape it, divide 
it among us and sit looking at us while we ate. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 25 



VII 



After Easter there was some pleasant outdoor work. 
Grandfather dug up the garden and we planted some 
vegetables. Of this work I liked planting potatoes best. I 
enjoyed walking after the plough in the cool moist earth 
with my bare feet. And while doing so, it pleased me to 
imagine that I was Yanko the sower. I took long even 
strides and swung my arm back and forth in a circle, as 
I took and dropped the potatoes. 

Mother saw me and scolded, saying that I dropped 
them too far apart. "You are always playing," she said. 
"Your sister, almost three years younger, is already a 
little woman; look!" 

Bent almost double under a bag of potatoes, sister was 
coming towards us, walking unsteadily under the weight. 

When she reached us mother took the bag and asked, 
"Is it not too heavy?" 

The love in her eyes, and tenderness in her voice made 
my heart ache with envy. And so as usual I went for 
consolation to my bush. 

While walking along I determined never to play again. 
But as soon as I sat down, the twigs and flowers turned 
into fanciful girls and boys who adored me. I named 
each one of them and myself I called Dena. And then 
we went romping about in the fields. 

I was extremely happy among these imaginary com- 
panions. But often they were the cause of punishment. 
For like real companions they lured me away from my 
work in the house, to play. 

Among these companions there was one who at first 
was just a name I liked. But after a while at the thought 



26 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

of the name I saw a vision of a tall, dark, handsome 
youth. And as I always wished for a big brother who 
would take care of me, I adopted him. 

So real did this imaginary brother become that when I 
found myself alone in the dark, trembling with fear, I 
would call out, "Oh, Ephraim, where are you?" Then I 
seemed to hear him say, "Ah, you little 'fraidcat, I knew 
you would want me. Here, take my hand." Then my 
two hands would clasp each other and I seemed to feel 
safer. 

As soon as the warm weather came the women of the 
village gave all their time and thought to the work in 
the fields. And so now we had no stockings to knit, no 
sewing, and no pots for grandfather to mend. He 
would often come home from the village with his little 
bag empty and sadness in his eyes. Indeed, there were 
many days when we had not enough even of potatoes. 
But this hardship did not last long. Soon a letter and 
money came from father. This was the first letter from 
America. Father did not tell us much about his life 
out there. He just said that he was boarding with a nice 
Russian Jewish family and that he was already working 
and earning ten dollars a week. The rest of the letter 
was just good cheer and loving messages to each one 
of us. 

Grandmother kept the letter under her pillow and soon 
the writing was defaced by her tears. 

One day I managed to get hold of it. I put it into 
my pocket, slipped out of the house, then I took it out 
and looked at it. 

It seemed to me so wonderful that a letter posted in 
America found its way into our little village. 

"And this is American paper and here is an American 
stamp! And no doubt father touched this very stamp 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 27 

with his fingers!" When I thought of that, he did not 
seem so far away. 

When winter came mother bought feathers to pick. 
Having three daughters she said she needed many pil- 
lows for their dowry. I liked picking feathers, as I liked 
sewing, not so much for itself as because it left my mind 
free to dream. 

Sometimes mother would let sister and myself take our 
bags of feathers and go to visit our neighbours. One 
whom we enjoyed visiting most was Siomka. She was 
a little, lonely, old widow who lived in a small hut not 
far away from us. During the summer she lived by 
working in the fields for neighbours and in the winter 
she spun and wove. 

To get to her living room we had to pass her out- 
house. This was a large windowless room, a place I 
used to run through when alone, with fast-beating heart. 
But when sister was with me I was not so afraid. 

Though she knew no fear herself, she always seemed 
to understand. As soon as we would come to the out- 
house door she would slip her little hand, which was 
always warm, into mine and say, "Hold on to me!" 
Then together we would run through. Often by the time 
I found the latch I was in a cold perspiration. But once 
within Siomka's smoke-covered walls, I was happy. 

By means of a log of wood we would climb up on her 
bed, which was just some boards knocked together and 
covered with a sack of straw. And there we would re- 
main all afternoon picking our feathers and watching 
Siomka weave. 

I loved to see the shuttle sliding between the threads, 
and hear the rhythmical sound of the loom. Often 
Siomka would stop her weaving and stoop down to pat 
the pink snout of her wee pig. At her touch he would 



28 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

blink his tiny eyes, wag his little tail, and grunt softly. 

The first time we saw the little pig, Siomka told us 
that she received him for some spinning she had done 
and that she was feeding him up for Christmas. But 
Christmas came and went and we saw the little pig still 
following Siomka about the house, or lying curled up at 
her feet while she spun. 

Then she told us that she would surely kill him for 
Easter. Easter noon while passing Siomka' s window I 
saw her eating black bread and potatoes. Then she came 
out and sat down on the door step, and watched with 
smiling eyes the little pig rolling in the soft mud before 
the hut. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 29 



VIII 

Grandmother had two children besides father, both 
daughters. The elder was happily married and lived 
about two or three days' journey from us. Whether 
through indifference or because of the distance, I do 
not know, but she never came to see her parents or wrote 
to them. Sometimes a traveller from her part of the 
country, passing through our village, would stop at our 
house and give us her greetings. 

The younger was twenty-one years of age now and 
was working in Mintck, a large city. She left home when 
she was sixteen and being fond of children she became 
a nurse girl. As grandmother expected her to be a 
seamstress, this choice of occupation caused grandmother 
as many tears as father's becoming a tailor instead of a 
rabbi. For a nurse girl was thought to be as much below 
a seamstress as a tailor below a rabbi. 

Father had been in America but a short time when 
grandmother realised that his emigration had lessened 
Aunt Masha's prospects of marriage. When she came 
to this conclusion her peace was gone. She wept night 
and day. "Poor Masha," she moaned, "what is to be- 
come of her? Her chances had been small enough with- 
out a dowry. And now, burdened with an aged father 
and a blind helpless mother, the best she can expect is 
a middle-aged widower with half a dozen children !" 

Mother tried to comfort her by telling her that she 
would remain in Russia as long as grandmother lived, 
so that she would not have to live with Masha. But this 
only irritated her. "You talk like a child," she wept. 
"You stay here and wait for my death, while my son, at 



30 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

the other end of the world, will be leading a life of 
loneliness. And as for me, would I have any peace, 
knowing that I was the cause?" 

Mother, seeing that she could do nothing to comfort 
her, silently awaited results. 

One night I woke hearing a muffled sound of crying. I 
felt for grandmother, with whom I slept. But she was 
not beside me. Frightened, I sat up and peered into 
the darkness. The crying came from the foot of the 
bed. And soon I discerned grandmother sitting there. 
With her hands clasped about her knees and her face 
buried in her lap she sat rocking gently and weeping. 

I called to her in a whisper to come and lie down, but 
she did not answer. For a while I sat trembling with 
cold and fear. Then I slipped far back under the warm 
comforter and tried to sleep. But the picture of grand- 
mother sitting alone in the dark and cold haunted me. 
And so again I arose. 

Creeping over to her quickly I curled up close to her 
and put my arms around her cold, trembling form. At 
first she did not take any notice of me. But after a few 
minutes she lifted her head and unclasping her hands, 
she drew me under her shawl, saying as she laid her wet 
face against mine, "Oh, you little mouse, how you do 
creep up to one! But you had better go back to your 
place or you will catch cold. ,, 

When I went back and as grandmother tucked me 
in, I asked her why she cried so. "Never mind, you little 
busybody," she said, "go to sleep." But I teased her to 
tell me. And finally she said with a sigh and speaking 
more to herself than to me, "It is about Masha. Go to 
sleep now, you will hear all about it to-morrow." 

She sat down on the edge of the bed gently patting 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 31 

my shoulder, as she had often done when I was a little 
child. Soon I fell asleep. 

The next day the rings under her eyes were darker, and 
her eyelids were more red and swollen than usual. But 
otherwise she seemed more calm than she had been for 
a long time. 

After dinner she said to mother, hesitating at every 
word as she spoke, "You know, I decided last night, that 
when you go to America Masha should go with you." 
This startled mother so that she almost dropped the baby 
whom she was swinging on her foot. 

"What are you saying ? Masha go to America and you 
left here alone ?" 

"Yes, alone," she sighed, "as if I never had any chil- 
dren. But so it must be. True, I have not had a happy 
life. But happy or not I have lived it. And now, it is 
almost at an end. But Masha has just begun to live, and 
in America she will have a better chance, for there are 
fewer women there, they say. As for me, I shall not 
be without comfort in my last days. When I am lonely, 
I shall think of her happily married and surrounded by 
dear little children like yours. And now listen to this 
plan. Of course I can not be left here alone, though my 
needs are few. And so before you start for America you 
will take me to my niece in the city. She is a very pious 
woman and so I am sure she will give me a little space 
in some corner of her house. Of course you will pay 
her for a year of my board. And after that perhaps you 
will send her money. But I hope it won't be necessary. 
Indeed, I feel that I won't trouble this world much 
longer." 

Mother tried to dissuade her from this plan but she 
turned a deaf ear and insisted that we write to father at 
once. And we did. 



32 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

About a month passed before we received an answer. 
The letter was heavier than usual. And when we opened 
it, two yellow tickets fell out from among the two 
closely-written sheets. 

"What is this?" we all asked at once. "Not money. 
And this writing must be English." 

We handed the tickets to grandmother who held out 
her hand for them. Suddenly her hand began to tremble 
and she said, "Perhaps these are steamer tickets. Quickly 
read the letter." 

After the usual greetings father wrote, "Since Masha 
is to come to America she might as well start as soon as 
she can get ready. And Rahel had better come with her. 
I am sure she can earn at least three dollars a week. 
With her help I'll be able to bring the rest of the family 
over much sooner, perhaps in a year or so. And besides, 
now she can still travel on half a ticket, which I am en- 
closing with the one for Masha." 

Quite bewildered, I looked at mother. Her lips were 
opening and closing without making a sound. Sud- 
denly she caught me into her arms and burst into tears. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 33 



IX 



For many days mother could not look at the steamer 
tickets without tears in her eyes. And even then though 
she tried to speak cheerfully about my going to America, 
I noticed that the anxious look which came into her eyes 
while the letter was being read, never left them. Also I 
felt her eyes following me about on every step. But once 
only, she gave way to her feelings openly. 

One morning while she was fastening the back of 
my dress I caught a few disconnected words, which she 
uttered low as though she were speaking to herself. 

"Good Heavens! child twelve years old — care — her- 
self." Then came those inward tearless sobs and I felt 
her hands tremble on my back. 

But grandmother took the news in a manner that 
astonished us all. When I looked at her over my moth- 
er's shoulder, after the letter was read, I saw her sitting 
at the table in her usual position. Her head was bent 
low and a little to one side, and her hands were folded in 
her lap. Very quietly she sat, not a word, not a tear 
came from her. 

Even grandfather, who never took any notice of her 
except to scold, looked at her in surprise. 

"Well, Baila!" he said. "Have you wept yourself dry? 
Or perhaps you have come to your senses at last and 
realise how useless tears are. Remember, that you are 
sending your child away yourself. I can always take care 
of my needs but you will die in the poorhouse." 

Grandfather and grandmother were always quarrel- 
ling. Grandfather claimed that she wept her eyes out. 
And grandmother said that all her troubles came because 



34 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

of his impiety. But when I grew older I learned that 
there was a deeper reason for their quarrels. 

As a rule when grandfather scolded, grandmother 
would retort with great spirit. But this time it was as 
if she did not hear him. 

She called me and dictated a letter to Aunt Masha, to 
come home at once. Then she went to her trunk and 
took out the ball of fine linen thread which she had been 
saving for years. And while starting a pair of stockings 
for Aunt Masha I heard her figuring quietly, what we 
would need for the journey, how long it would take us 
to get ready, and what day we would start. 

As for me, I became suddenly a very important per- 
son. At home I was looked upon as a guest. Now 
mother never pressed me to do any work. On the con- 
trary, as soon as I would start to do something, she 
would say, 

"Run out and play, you will work hard enough 
pretty soon.' 5 Neither did I find it necessary to feign 
illness as I had often done before that I might be fondled 
and caressed. No, indeed; now mother would often put 
baby down to take me on her lap. 

And the young women of the village, who never took 
any notice of me before, would stop to speak to me. 

One day, at sundown, I sat on our gate munching a 
bit of carrot, and watching the red sun disappearing 
gradually behind the treetops, when I became aware of 
some one standing in back of me. I turned around and 
saw Miriam. She was a pretty, gipsy-like young woman 
whose dark eyes always looked moist and a little red as 
though she had just been crying. 

"So you are going to America," she said, looking at 
me wistfully, "you are very fortunate. Of course you 
are too young to realise it now but you will, later, when 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 35 

you grow older and think of this." She pointed to 
Siomka's half-tumbled hut, and the little pig who stood 
at the door and squealed to be let in. 

"No," she continued, almost in a whisper, "your life 

won't be wasted like ." Here Siomka's little pig 

squealed louder than ever and Miriam turned suddenly 
and went away. I sat for a long while wondering what 
the last word might have been. Then I jumped down 
from the gate and ran into the house to look at the 
steamer tickets, perhaps for the tenth time that day. 

I do not know whether I considered myself fortunate 
in going to America or not. But I do remember that 
when I convinced myself, by looking at the tickets often, 
that it was not a dream like many others I had had, that 
I would really start for America in a month or six 
weeks, I felt a great joy. Of course I was a little 
ashamed of this joy. I saw that mother was unhappy. 
And grandmother's sorrow, very awful, in its calmness, 
was double now. For I felt that I was almost as dear to 
her as Aunt Masha. 

When a week passed we cleaned the house as thor- 
oughly as if it were for Easter, in honour of Aunt 
Masha's coming. 

During the five years that she had been away she vis- 
ited us twice. The last time had been three years before. 
And so we were all excited and eager to see her. 

As the days passed and the time drew near for her 
coming, grandmother became so impatient and nervous 
that she would jump at the least outdoor sound, asking 
excitedly, 

"What is that? I think I hear the rumbling of wheels. 
Isn't that some one coming?" Then we would all rush 
to the door and windows and find that it was only a cart 



36 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

passing on the road, or a pig scratching his back against 
the sharp corner of the house. 

One day we really heard a cart drive up to the door. 
When we ran out we saw a small, plump, pretty young 
woman in a brown dress jump lightly to the ground. 
"Oh, grandmother, quickly come, it is Aunt Masha." 
In a moment grandmother tumbled out of bed, but be- 
fore she could reach the door she was in Aunt Masha' s 
arms. And for a while there was sobbing in every cor- 
ner of the room. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 37 



We children scarcely knew Aunt Masha. All I re- 
membered of her two visits, was that both times she had 
come to stay a month, but went away at the end of a 
week, and that we felt depressed afterwards, and grand- 
mother cried for days and days. 

And so it was only now that we began to know her. 
When she had been home a short time we found that 
she was affectionate, but also severe, and hot-tempered. 
If we did not obey her promptly she scolded severely, or 
worse still, stopped speaking to us. Aunt Masha was 
also a painfully clean person and spent a great deal of 
time in washing us. Brother, whose skin was dark, often 
appeared, after she was through with him, with his neck 
red and tears in his eyes. 

But the greatest trouble was caused by Aunt Masha's 
personal belongings. Nothing of hers must be touched. 
And as we were very curious about things that came 
from the city there was a world of trouble. 

One morning I arose earlier than usual. All were 
asleep except mother and grandfather, who were out. 
As I passed Aunt Masha's bed I was attracted by her 
little shoes which stood close together on the floor be- 
side her bed, looking like two soldiers keeping watch. 
They were the smallest things with high tops, pointed 
toes and elastic sides. Often I had longed to try them 
on. And once I even asked Aunt Masha if I might. But 
she said, "No, you would burst them." Now as I stood 
looking at them and at my own clumsy lace shoes, made 
by our village shoemaker, I thought, "Yes, they would 



38 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

fit. Oh, how I should like to try them on, just for a 
moment." 

I glanced at Aunt Masha's face. The wrinkle between 
her eyebrows was there even now, and it was saying to 
me, "No!" But the lips which were partly open show- 
ing the white strong teeth, seemed to smile, "Yes." 

Very quietly I tiptoed over to the bed, took the shoes 
and hastened to the bench near the oven. My fingers 
trembled so, that I could not open my laces. They be- 
came knotted and it took me a long time to break them 
open. But at last my shoes were off. 

I remember how rapidly my heart beat when I began 
to draw one of hers on. I thought, "If it does not go 
on easily, I won't force it." But it did, and felt com- 
fortable. And the elastic fitted snugly around the ankles. 
With a feeling of pleasure I stepped down on the floor to 
see how much taller I looked with high heels. As I 
stood up I glanced anxiously toward Aunt Masha's bed. 
What I saw sent the blood rushing to my face. 

She was sitting up in bed looking as though she saw 
a ghost. 

"I suppose you have burst them. I told you not to 
put them on," she said and frowned. This frown brought 
back my earliest recollections of her. I remembered how 
I feared it. Now as I stood looking at her it deepened 
and deepened until it seemed to darken her whole face, 
and reminded me of an angry cloud. 

Quickly I took off her shoes, put them near her bed 
and ran from her as from an approaching storm. 

Outside I met mother, who saw that something had 
happened, the minute she looked at me. When I told 
her she scolded. 

"You should not have tried on the shoes when you 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 39 

were told not to do it. Now I think you had better go 
and apologise." 

I had never apologised in my life. In the days when 
I was given the choice between apologising and a spank- 
ing, I always chose the spanking. Now when I knew 
that no spanking was coming I certainly refused to do it. 
But mother coaxed and begged, and reasoned, 

"You are going out into the wide world alone, among 
strangers. Don't harden your heart against your only 
friend. Oh, how I wish you had more sense!" She 
turned away and cried like a little child. 

I was miserable. The very thought of apologising 
made my face burn. But here stood mother crying. 

"I won't have many more chances of pleasing her," I 
thought. 

"Mother, I'll apologise, but — not now," I begged. 
She turned to me. "That is a dear child," she said, look- 
ing brighter, "but if you do it at all, do it now." 

"What shall I say?" I asked. 

"Oh, just say you are sorry you disobeyed." 

We went into the house. Aunt Masha was dressed 
and stood at the window, combing out her beautiful 
brown hair. It fell all about her, covering almost half of 
her small body. When she heard the door close she parted 
her hair in front, as if it were a curtain, and looked. She 
dropped it quickly when she saw me and went on comb- 
ing carefully. Slowly I went over to her. "Aunt 
Masha," I said. My voice sounded strange to me. Again 
she parted her hair and looked at me. I thought I saw 
an expression of triumph in her steel grey eyes. This 
hurt me. And almost before I could think I blurted out, 
angrily, 

"Aunt Masha, I'll never, never, touch anything of 
yours again, as if it were — swine!" 



40 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

Aunt Masha fairly gasped. And mother looked hor- 
rified. Indeed, I was horrified myself at what I had 
done. I turned to mother and tried to explain. But I 
could not make her understand me. I was not good at 
explanations when I myself was concerned. Quite mis- 
erable, I ran out of the house and wandered about in the 
fields for the rest of the morning. 

Aunt Masha did not speak to me for three days. Dur- 
ing that time when our eyes happened to meet, I tried to 
tell her, in a dumb way, that I was sorry. But she al- 
ways turned her face away quickly. Once when we met 
near the door, our shoulders almost touching, I saw a 
smile come quivering to her lips. And so I waited, hop- 
ing she would speak to me. But the next moment she 
frowned it down and passed on as if she did not know 
me. On the fourth day, at twilight, I came up on her 
so suddenly, while she was outside, that she gave a little 
scream of fright. I, too, was frightened, and caught 
hold of her hand. And she let it stay in mine. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 41 



XI 



All through the Spring, while mother, grandmother 
and Aunt Masha were sewing and knitting stockings for 
Aunt Masha and me to take along to America, I wan- 
dered about in the fields, restless and unable to play at 
anything. 

Early, while the flowers were still heavy with the 
morning dew, I would take baby, who was a little over 
a year old, on my back, tie him on to me with a shawl, 
so that I could rest my arms when they grew tired, and 
start out followed by the rest of the children. For hours 
we would wander about like gipsies. 

More often than anywhere we went to the lake, where 
it was very lively at that time of the year, as the peasant 
women were bleaching their linens. There, sister and 
brother would go off digging for flagroot. And I would 
put the two little ones on the flat rock near the edge and 
climbing up beside them, we would all sit quietly for the 
longest while, watching, listening. 

It was a pleasant spot. The clear blue water lay 
quietly rippling and sparkling in the sun. On the edge 
were the women with red kerchiefs on their heads and 
beads of many colours around their necks, swinging their 
wooden mallets in unison. And the neighbourhood rang 
with the echoes which seemed to come from the dense, 
mysterious looking forest across the lake. While through 
the air floated the sweet odour of new wet linen. 

But the time I loved this spot best was late in the 
afternoon, when the light grew soft and the women went 
away to their homes. Then came a peculiar hush, and 
yet there seemed to be a thousand voices in the air whis- 



42 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

pering softly. They came from everywhere, from the 
tall stately forest trees across the lake, the hazelnut 
bushes, the flags as the wind passed over them. And the 
lake, a deeper blue now in the soft light, rippled gently 
as if with laughter. Sometimes these fairy-like voices 
would be lost for a moment in the louder sound of a 
dry twig breaking and falling to the ground, the cuckoo 
of a bird or the splash of a fish. 

I do not know what effect this had on the children. 
It made me unspeakably happy and sad at the same time. 
I remember that I used to want to laugh and cry and sing 
and dance, and very often I did. To dance I would clasp 
hands with the children, and we would spin around, and 
around, until we fell down breathless and dizzy. 

At twilight we would start for home, walking very 
slowly and feeling very sad at the thought of bed time. 

So the Spring passed. 

As the second of June, the day for our departure to 
America, drew near, I stayed more in the house and fol- 
lowed mother about more closely. Gradually I became 
conscious of two things. One was the fear of going 
out into the world. Just what I feared I did not know. 
And the other was regret. I had not realised how dear 
to me were my people and home until I was about to 
leave them. But the one whom I regretted to leave most 
was grandmother. 

Grandfather was not fond of me and so he cared little 
about my going away. And mother and the children 
I should see again. But that grandmother cared I knew. 
And I also knew and she knew that her I should never 
see again. 

One day grandmother and I were alone in the house, at 
least, I think we were alone. For as I look back now I 
can see no one but the two of us. I am standing at the 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 43 

window, and she is walking across the room, with her 
slow, hesitating step, and her hands stretched in front 
of her for protection. Coming upon a bench in the mid- 
dle of the room she sat down heavily, saying, with a 
sigh, 

"It is strange, but the room seems to have grown 
larger." 

"What is that shadow at the window, Rahel? Come, 
child, let me lean on you. There, your shoulder just 
fits under my arm. Do you remember when you first 
began to lead me about? That was when you still called 
yourself by name." 

When we reached the window she raised her hand, 
shaded her eyes from the strong light and stood quietly 
for a while, looking out. Then she said, 

"This must be a beautiful day. For my eyelids are 
not as heavy when it is clear." 

"Oh, grandmother, it is glorious! There is not a 
cloud in the sky. And, that thing waving in front of 
the window, can you make out what it is?" 

"I see a black, shapeless mass. What is it?" 

"It is the wild apple tree, white with blossoms." 

"H-m-m — yes," she said, meditatively, "it was a day 
just like this." 

"When, grandmother?" 

She did not answer for a long while and when she 
spoke at last her voice was low and passionate. 

"When God took my sight from me. My eyes had 
never been strong. One day in the Spring, it was beau- 
tiful like to-day, I was digging in the garden, but a little 
while it seemed to me, when I was startled by a crash 
of thunder so that the very earth under my feet seemed 
to tremble. I looked up. The sun was gone and a black 
angry cloud hung over our house. Quickly I gathered 



44 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



up the tools and hastened toward home. I was but a 
few steps away when a wind-storm came. It rocked the 
trees, blew the loosened shingles from the roof, and 
swept the dry sand in a whirl before me. At the same 
moment I felt a stinging pain in my eyes so that I could 
not see the door. In darkness I groped about for long 
time, till I found it. For twenty-four hours I was beside 
myself with pain. At the end of that time it went away as 
suddenly as it came. When your father, who was a 
little boy then, untied the kerchief from my eyes I asked 
him if it were night. 

" 'Why, mother/ I heard his frightened voice, 'it is 
daylight. Don't you see the sun across your bed ?' Then 
I knew." 

She stood silent and motionless for a while. Then 
she said more calmly, 

"But I must not sin. For if God has taken my sight, 
He has given me dear little grandchildren who have been 
everything I wanted. Ah, if I had only been worthy 
enough to keep them with me !" Here she turned to me 
suddenly and taking my face between her cold soft hands 
she said entreatingly, 

"Rahel, promise me that you won't cry when you 
are starting. You hear? It is bad luck to cry when one 
is starting on a journey. And — I want you to write me 
whether there are any synagogues in America." 

"I promise!" 

Still holding my face between her hands she bent over 
it and looked at it intently. I saw a strained expression 
come into her face and the eyes move about restlessly 
under the heavy red lids, as though she were trying to 
see. Then came a pitiful moan, and tears rolled down 
her cheeks and fell on mine. 

What happened after this I do not remember until the 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 45 

very minute of starting on the second of June. And 
even then, as I look back I can see nothing at first, but 
a thick grey mist But the sounds I recall very distinctly. 

There was Aunt Masha's voice crying, a crack of a 
whip, horses' hoofs striking against stones. Then there 
was a sudden jolt and I felt myself falling backwards. 
And now I remember what I saw, too. 

When I rose I found myself sitting in a straw-lined 
wagon, with my back to the horse. Besides me were 
mother and the baby, who were coming to the city with 
us, and Aunt Masha who was lying with her face hidden 
in the straw, crying aloud. 

I remembered grandmother's warning, "Nothing but 
bad luck could come to one who is crying while starting 
on a journey," and felt sorry for Aunt Masha. But as 
we were pulling out through the gate and I saw grand- 
mother looking so lonely and forsaken, as she stood 
leaning against the house, and when I saw grandfather 
and the children who stood at the gate, looking after us 
and crying, I could not keep my own tears back, though 
I opened my eyes wide and blinked hard. 

We were still but a short distance from the house 
when I saw grandmother go in through the open door, 
and close it behind her with unusual quickness. As she 
was passing the window I caught a last glimpse of her 
white kerchief tied about her head. 

When we turned the corner I could not see grand- 
father's and the children's faces any more but I still 
heard their voices carried over by the wind. 

One by one we passed the dear familiar places. Each 
one brought back sad and happy recollections. As I 
looked at my favourite bush while we were passing it, 
I saw my little make-believe companions spring up in it 
one after another. And among them I saw the swarthy 



4 6 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 



face of my imaginary brother Ephraim. I waved my 
hand to him, and then hid my face on mother's shoulder. 
When I looked up again the road was unknown to 
me. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 47 



XII 



We were bound for Mintck. This was a large city 
about a day and a half hard travelling from our village. 
There mother was to see an agent about smuggling us 
across the border and buy a few necessary things for 
our journey. 

As I had been unable to see mother's people before 
going, we went a little out of our way to stop with them 
for a few hours. Shortly before sunset we arrived at 
their home which stood on the outskirt of a small town. 

Mother's father had been dead for some years and 
the mother was living with her four sons who were 
blacksmiths by trade. 

As we had to pass the shop which was a short distance 
from the house we stopped there first. All four were 
busy at the forge, at the bellows one was swinging the 
heavy sledge and Uncle Hayim, who was the oldest, was 
shaping a piece of iron on the anvil. Seeing us he 
stopped and came to meet us. He kissed mother with 
more than usual tenderness, shook hands with Aunt 
Masha, and looked at me in surprise. "Well, well," he 
said, "how tall you have grown. But you are only a 
feather-weight after all." He laughed as he raised me 
lightly on a level with himself. 

He locked up the shop and we all went to the house. 
At the door we met grandmother coming from the barn 
with a pail of foaming milk which she almost spilt in her 
surprise at seeing us. 

She was as different from my other grandmother as 
a person could be. She was a strong, stocky little woman, 
so industrious and quick that at times it was hard to 



48 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

believe that there was just one of her. In telling stories, 
however, she was like my other grandmother. Every- 
thing she saw and heard reminded her of a story. 

We started to continue on our journey soon after sup- 
per. At parting we all cried a good deal and laughed, 
too, when I refused to kiss my two younger uncles on the 
ground that they were boys. 

"But," said the younger and mischievous one, "you 
kissed me two weeks ago when I was at your home." 

"Then it was different," I said. I could not explain 
but perhaps I felt that in parting from my childhood 
surroundings I parted from childhood, too. 

Uncle Hayim lit the way to the wagon with a lantern. 
He held it up high while mother tucked baby and me 
into the straw, between Aunt Masha and herself. 

I was very fond of this uncle and as I lay looking 
at his face, with the light shining on it, I thought, "An- 
other minute, and I won't see him any more. Perhaps 
I'll never see him again." Indistinctly, through my tears, 
I saw the driver climb into the wagon and uncle jump 
on the axle of the wheel. He bent over me. "Farewell !" 
he said. At that moment his voice and face were so 
much like my mother's that I was struck with terror and 
could not breathe until I found her hand. 

As we jogged off I heard uncle calling after us, 
"Don't forget God." And it seemed to me that the frogs 
from the neighbouring swamps took up the words and 
croaked, "Don't forget God! Don't forget God!" 

The road was very uneven, and every time the wheels 
passed over a stone I heard Aunt Masha's head bump 
against the wagon. Mother gave her some more straw 
to put there, but she refused. 

"What," she said, peevishly, "is this pain or any other 
pain that I have ever had, compared with what my 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 49 

mother suffers to-night." And so she let her head bump 
as if that would give her mother relief. For a long time 
I felt Aunt Masha's body shaking with sobs. But by 
degrees it grew quieter, the breathing became regular, 
and she slept. Then I saw mother, who I thought was 
also asleep, sit up. She took some straw from her side 
of the wagon and bending over me towards Aunt Masha 
she raised her head gently and spread the straw under it. 

Long after mother fell asleep I still lay awake. Every 
nerve in my body quivered and my eyes burned. As I 
lay looking up into the starlit sky I lived the day over 
again. The parting from home! "Could there be any- 
thing more painful than parting from those dear to 
you? ,, I wondered. "Will this ache in my heart always 
be there? And yet, how strange! It is but a few hours 
since I have left grandmother and the children and their 
faces have already become indistinct, as though I had 
left them a long time ago. And so it will be when I 
part from mother. Oh, I can't bear to think of it ! Sup- 
pose something happens now and I could not go to 
America but had to return home. Would I be glad? 
Glad to go back to four smoke-covered walls? No! I 
would be disappointed, more than that, — life would 
hardly be worth living/ ' 

To what other conclusions I came that night I do not 
remember distinctly. But I recall that gradually I be- 
came conscious of the sweet moist night air passing over 
my face and the splendour of the stars and was soothed 
by their quiet light. 

I slept until baby poked his little nose under my chin to 
wake me at broad daylight. My first thought was, "I 
am in Mintck." I had looked forward with pleasure to 
being there. And yet all I saw of it was a dingy court- 
yard, a sunless room, a drosky and a railroad station. 



50 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

The dingy courtyard we passed through when we got 
out of the wagon, and the sunless room was the home 
of our cousins with whom we stayed as long as we re- 
mained in the city. These cousins were the children of 
father's and Aunt Masha's half-brother, who had died 
several years before. Aunt Masha knew them as well as 
she knew us, and mother knew them too, but to me they 
were strangers. 

When we came into the room I saw a small, dark young 
man with a pale, delicate face, a square-shouldered boy 
of about seventeen and a girl of my own age with beau- 
tiful brown hair like Aunt Masha's. 

I remember that I kept in back of mother. The 
thought of being looked at made me feel quite ill. 

During the three days that followed I stayed in the 
house and took care of baby while mother and Aunt 
Masha were doing their errands. There was quite some 
trouble with the agents. They found out that we had 
no local passport and could not get one. And so they 
demanded an unreasonable sum of money which mother 
finally had to pay. And even then, it was just as likely 
as not that we would be caught crossing the boundary 
and sent back. 

"Your children had better take along plenty of money," 
the agent said with a smile, while he was pocketing the 
roll of bills, "for you never can tell how long they 
might have to wait in Hamburg for a steamer." Mother 
wept, hearing this. There was so little left to take along. 

I think it was on the second day that the boy asked 
Aunt Masha, "Why don't you take Rahel along and 
show her the City?" 

"In these shoes?" Aunt Masha asked, looking at him 
severely. 

"Well," he said, "you are going to buy her shoes, 



#*& 




\? i IJ^-'t-- t^c-*^ 



THE DROSKY IS AT THE DOOR. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 51 

are you not? Why not buy them now and let her go 
along?" 

"Look here," Aunt Masha said with terrible calmness, 
"when I ask for your advice you will give it to me. 

Until then ." The boy dropped into a chair as if he 

were shot. Then came a peal of laughter. He laughed 
and laughed until his whole body rocked and his small 
twinkling blue eyes disappeared. We all laughed with 
him. And even Aunt Masha had to frown hard and 
purse her pretty lips in order not to smile. 

On the third morning Aunt Masha bought me a very 
pretty pair of black patent-leather slippers with two but- 
tons. I remember that after I put them on, I sat most 
of the time. I wanted to keep the soles clean. And it 
was only to give baby the pleasure and myself, too, of 
hearing them squeak, that I walked across the room. 

In the afternoon mother sewed the money that was 
left into the side lining of my little underwaist. "No one 
will suspect it there," she said. When she was through 
she spread the waist out on her knee and smoothed 
out the creases with great tenderness. While putting on 
the waist I noticed that there were many damp spots on 
it. 

After that there was nothing more to do. Our new 
wicker basket was ready and stood corded at the door. 
And there was a small bag of zwieback and two new 
bright tin drinking cups. I remember how silently we 
all sat waiting for five o'clock, how white mother's face 
looked, how unnaturally cheerful Aunt Masha seemed, 
how attentive the boy was to all of us, how rapidly my 
heart beat as if I had been running a long distance. 

A little before the hour my pale-faced cousin came in. 
And it seemed to me that he grew still paler when he 
looked at us and said, "The drosky is at the door." 



52 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

I don't remember how we left the house. But when 
we were in the drosky I saw that I had my tin cup in 
my hand and Aunt Masha had the bag of zwieback and 
the other cup. We were driven to the station at a speed 
that made baby's breath come and go in gasps. 

The platform was crowded. "Here is the train," my 
cousin said. "Hurry !" Mother caught me into her arms 
with a cry that made me forget everything. Half un- 
conscious now of what was going on, I held her around 
the neck with all my strength. 

"A crowded train," I heard. "Hurry!" And again, 
"You will never get a seat now," and still later, "Oh, I 
thought you were such a brave girl" — "You will miss the 
train, Rahel!" 

Some one pulled my hands apart. I was lifted from 
the back and carried into the train. I looked through the 
window into the crowd for mother. Just as I caught 
sight of her face the train began to move. I saw her 
fling out her arms wildly and run alongside of the train 
for a few steps. Then her arms dropped limply at her 
sides and she disappeared in the crowd. 

I stood for a moment swaying back and forth. Then 
it grew dark as if night had suddenly come. The tin 
cup fell out of my hand. I saw it lying on the floor but 
indistinctly and the distance between it and me seemed 
immeasurable and grew with every instant. "My cup," 
I tried to call and took a step toward it. Then it disap- 
peared altogether. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 53 



XIII 



Aunt Masha's tear-stained face, bending over me 
anxiously, was the first thing I saw when I regained 
consciousness. Then I found that I was sitting in some 
one's lap and in my own there were two small, white- 
gloved hands clasped together. Surprised, I looked over 
my shoulder and saw under a large, black hat a charming, 
girlish face. I felt very much embarrassed and tried to 
stand up at once. But she spoke to me in a quiet, sooth- 
ing voice and at the same time she drew me toward her 
so gently and so gradually that I was scarcely conscious 
of it until I felt my back resting against her, and my 
head on her shoulder. 

We travelled for about an hour when she stood up. She 
put me on her seat, nodded to Aunt Masha, who was also 
sitting by that time, and went to the door. When the 
train stopped she looked at me with a smile, blew a kiss 
from her finger tips, and was gone. 

In wonder and regret I sat staring at the door until I 
heard Aunt Masha whisper half severely, half entreat- 
ingly, "Rahel, do stop staring so. You seem to think 
you are still in the woods." 

We were in the train two or three days. When we 
made long stops Aunt Masha used to leave me in the 
train and go to get food and drink. I remember the 
first time she went out I was trembling with fear lest 
the train should go off before she returned. Each time 
she went out I would get as near a window as possible 
and stand ready to jump out in case the train started. 

I do not remember how or when we left the train, or 
how about twenty-five of us, two young men and the 



54 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

rest women and very small children, came to be travelling 
in a large, canvas-covered wagon, on a country road 
white with the heat and dust. The first thing I recall see- 
ing was one of the young men bent almost double, so as 
not to strike his head against the roof, coming toward 
Aunt Masha and me, who sat in the back. He sat down 
in front of Aunt Masha and looked at her with a grin 
which made the tip of his long, thin-hooked nose and red, 
bristling moustache touch. 

"You are a pretty girl," he said, beginning to twirl his 
moustache and looking at her, through half-closed, blood- 
shot eyes. Aunt Masha blushed painfully and turned 
her head away. 

"Oh, come, look this way," he coaxed, catching hold 
of her hands. Aunt Masha grew angry. At the same 
time I saw that she was trying to control herself and 
take the whole thing as a joke while struggling to free 
her hands. 

I was furious. To see this stranger touch her, and 
look at her which seemed to hurt her more than if she 
were struck, was so awful to me that I could not stand 
it. "Let go her hand." 

"I won't," he laughed and made a vulgar remark at 
which some of the women tittered. But others called 
out, "Oh, shame, to speak so to a child." 

"Will you let go her hand?" I was hardly able to 
speak now in my anger. He glanced at me and I saw 
that he was amused and, as if to carry the fun still 
further, he drew Aunt Masha's face to his own. Then 
I lost my head. I jumped up and began to strike at him 
blindly with both fists. 

He was so taken by surprise that he did not seem to 
realise at first what was happening to him. Finally he 
let her go and jumping up he caught hold of me. Aunt 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 55 

Masha screamed and the women interfered. He flung 
me down into the bottom of the wagon and looked around 
at the women. 

"The little fury," he gasped, "who would have ex- 
pected it of her? She looked as quiet as a mouse." 

I was surprised myself at my daring, but I was not 
sorry. 

From that hour there was no peace. Like a shadow 
he followed us about on every step. He tried to be on 
friendly terms with Aunt Masha. I saw this and so 
seldom left her alone. He read my mind and hated me. 

Toward evening of that day we came to an empty 
little log house so much like ours at home that I could 
not restrain a cry of joy at the sight of it. The roof, 
however, was of shingles instead of straw. 

When it grew quite dark a few wagons drove up to 
the door of the hut. There was a good deal of whisper- 
ing and disputing about which Aunt Masha tried to keep 
me in ignorance. Her idea was to keep me from know- 
ing everything that was unpleasant. But her way of do- 
ing it was as unpleasant as anything could have been. 
For it was always, "Rahel, go away, don't listen I" 

"But why, Aunt Masha?" 

"Why? Because I say so!" So I would walk away 
and watch intently from a distance. I noticed that Aunt 
Masha did not want to go into a wagon with small 
children. Nor did the other women who had none of 
their own. At last, after much talking and swearing on 
the part of the drivers, which I could not help over- 
hearing, in spite of Masha's precaution, we were all 
placed. I was put flat on my face between Aunt Masha 
and her friend, into one of the wagons spread with ill- 
smelling hay. We were covered up with more of it, 



56 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

heads and all, then drove off, it seemed to me, each 
wagon in a different direction. 

We might have been driving for an hour, though it 
seemed much longer for I could hardly breathe, when I 
heard the driver's hoarse whisper, "Remember, people, 
you are not to make a sound, nor move a limb for the 
next half hour." 

Soon after this I heard a rough voice in Russian, "Who 
is there ?" 

"It is Mushka," our driver answered. 

"What have you in the wagon?" the Russian de- 
manded. 

"Oh, just some bags of flour," Mushka answered. 

I felt a heavy hand laid on my back. At that moment 
it dawned on me that we were stealing across the border. 
My heart began to thump so that I was sure he heard it. 
And in my fear I began to pray. But I stopped at once, 
at a pinch from Aunt Masha and a nudge from her 
friend. Then I heard the clink of money. At last the, 
rough voice called out loudly, "Flour? Go ahead." 

As we started off again I heard the crying of children 
in the distance, and shooting. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 57 



XIV 



One day, I don't remember how soon after we crossed 
the border, we arrived in Hamburg. We stopped in a 
large, red building run in connection with the steamship 
company. We were all shown (really driven) into a 
large room where many dirty, narrow cots stood along 
the walls. Aunt Masha shivered as she looked at the 
one in which we two were to sleep. 

"The less we stay in these beds the better," she said. 
So, although we were dead tired we went to bed quite 
late. But before we were on our cot very long we saw 
that sleep was out of the question. 

The air in the room was so foul and thick that it felt 
as if it could be touched. From every corner came sounds 
of groaning and snoring. But worst of all were the in- 
sects in the cot. After battling with these for some 
time Aunt Masha sat up. 

"I feel I'll go mad," she gasped, clutching her hair. 
After sitting up a while she remembered seeing a wagon 
with some hay in it under the shed in the yard, and we 
decided to go there. We took our shoes in our hands and 
slipped out noiselessly. 

It was a dark night and Aunt Masha was almost as 
much afraid in the dark as I was. With one arm clasped 
about each other's waists we groped about an endless 
time, until we crossed the yard and found the wagon. 
Fortunately, no one had thought of sleeping in it. Aunt 
Masha gave a sigh of relief and satisfaction as she 
nestled comfortably into the hay. Soon she was asleep. 

To me sleep did not come so readily. My mind always 
seemed more active when I lay down at night than at any 



58 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

other time. And since we had been on the journey I 
could not sleep because of the new and strange things 
about me. 

As I lay thinking, listening, I suddenly caught a whiff 
of cigarette smoke. I sat up quickly and peered into the 
darkness. In the direction where I knew the door was I 
saw a tiny light. My first thought was to wake Aunt 
Masha. Then it occurred to me that it must be some one 
like ourselves who could not sleep and so came to stay 
outside. But as I sat watching the light I saw that it was 
coming toward the shed, though very slowly. 

Nearer and nearer it came and soon I discerned a 
tall, dark form coming along stealthily. I recognised the 
slow cat-like tread. It was he with the red eyes and 
grinning mouth. 

I was almost beside myself with fear now that I knew 
who it was and I pressed closer to Aunt Masha. As he 
stopped a short distance from the shed and stood listen- 
ing, I coughed to let him know that some one was in the 
wagon. 

Then only, it seemed as if he realised that the light 
from his cigarette could be seen and he put his hand be- 
hind him. For a minute or so he stood still, listening. 
Then he went away as stealthily as he came and I saw 
him crouch down in a corner of the yard. 

I sat wondering whether he knew that it was Aunt 
Masha and I that were in the wagon, and whether he 
would come again. He did, after a good while passed. 
Again I coughed to warn him. But this time he came 
right into the shed and craning his neck he tried to see. 

"Why don't you lie down and go to sleep,' , he whis- 
pered, feigning friendly concern. Now I saw that he 
knew us. 

"I am not sleepy," I said, loudly. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 59 

"But you will fall asleep if you lie down/' he insisted. 

I noticed that he looked around as if he were uneasy 
when I spoke loud. So I answered still louder : 

"I am not going to lie down. I am going to sit up all 
night, and if you don't go away at once I'll shout and 
wake the whole house." Then he turned quickly and 
tiptoed away, cursing under his breath. 

At first I thought I would let Aunt Masha sleep a while 
and then wake her. But when some time passed it oc- 
curred to me that if I could stay up all night without 
waking Aunt Masha, no one could ever again call me 
that hated name, " 'Fraid-cat." So I clasped my hands 
tightly in my lap and sat watching, listening. At the 
least sound in the yard I felt my hair rise on my head. 
Several times Aunt Masha moved restlessly in her sleep. 
Then I too, moved, half hoping that she would hear me 
and wake up. But she slept on. At one time it grew so 
dark and so cold that I could not keep my teeth still and 
it seemed as if the night would never end. 

"Oh, now I must wake her." But at the very thought 
of it I seemed to hear, "Ah, you are a 'Fraid-cat after 
all." And so I pressed my hand over my mouth and 
waited. 

At last a faint grey light came creeping slowly into 
the yard. With unspeakable joy I watched the house 
loom out of the darkness, but it was only when the small- 
er objects in the yard took on their natural forms, and 
people began to come and go, that I lay down. 

My head scarcely seemed to have touched the hay 
when I heard Aunt Masha say, teasingly, "Oh, you sleepy 
head, the night is never long enough for you. Why, 
your eyes are actually swollen from too much sleep. Get 
up." 

I sat up, not knowing at first where I was or what 



60 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

had happened. Then recollecting my experience of the 
night I wondered whether I should tell Aunt Masha or 
not. She had never invited any confidence from me. 
And this particularly seemed hard to tell. As I sat, 
hesitating, I half saw, half felt the red eyes glaring at 
me from the doorway. And so I jumped out of the wag- 
on and ran to get washed. 

Our breakfast, which was boiled potatoes and slices 
of white bread, was served on long bare tables in a room 
like the sleeping room. No sooner was the food put on 
the tables than it was gone, and some of us were left 
with empty plates. Aunt Masha and I looked at each 
other and burst out laughing. To see the bread grabbed 
up and the fingers scorched on the boiled potatoes was 
ugly and pathetic but also funny. 

"To-morrow," Aunt Masha said, "we too shall have 
to grab. For the money sewed in your waist won't last 
if we have to buy more than one meal a day for a week." 
But the next day it was almost the same thing. Going 
hungry seemed easy in comparison wth the shame we felt 
to put out our hands for the bread while there was such 
a struggle. 

Aunt Masha managed to get one slice which she held 
out to me. "Here, eat it." When I refused she gave 
me a look that was as bad as a blow. "Take it at once," 
she said angrily. I took it. I found it hard to swallow 
the bread, knowing that she was hungry. 

We stayed in Hamburg a week. Every day from ten 
in the morning until four in the afternoon we stayed in 
a large, bare hall waiting for our names to be called. On 
the left side of the hall there was a heavy door leading 
into the office, where the emigrants were called in one 
by one. 

I used to sit down on the floor opposite the door and 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 61 

watch the people's faces as they came and went into the 
office. Some looked excited and worried when they 
came out, and others looked relieved. 

When our names were called I rose quickly and fol- 
lowed Aunt Masha. The clerk who always came to the 
door, which he opened only a little, looked at us and 
asked our names. Then he let Aunt Masha go in and 
pushing me away roughly without a word he shut the 
heavy door in my face. 

I stood nearby waiting, until my feet ached. When 
Aunt Masha came out at last her face was flushed and 
there were tears in her eyes. Immediately she went over 
to her friends (she had many friends by that time) 
and began to talk to them excitedly. I followed her but 
she stopped talking when she saw me. I understood that 
I was not to listen. And so I went away. 

This went on for almost a week. Each day her face 
looked more worried and perplexed. 

One afternoon the door of the office opened wider than 
usual and a different clerk came out holding a paper in 
his hand. He told us that the English steamer for which 
we had been waiting was in. And then he read the names 
of those who were to go on it. 

I'll never forget Aunt Masha's joy when she heard 
that we were to sail the next day. She ran from one to 
the other of her friends, crying and laughing at once. 

"The scoundrel," she kept on saying, "he threatened 
to send us home. He said he had the power to send us 
home!" Then she ran over to me and in her joy almost 
smothered me in her embrace. 

I don't remember whether it was on this same day or 
when we were already on the steamer that our clothes 
were taken away to be "steamed." As my little under- 
waist, which still had some money in it, was also taken, 



62 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

we spent some anxious hours. The money was not 
touched. But when I looked at my pretty little slippers 
I wept bitter tears. They looked old, and wrinkled, and 
two of the buttons were off. 

On the following evening we sailed off in a small white 
boat. We all sat on the floor of the deck. I dreaded 
crossing the ocean for I had heard that the water was 
rough. The boat rocked fearfully, and there was sick- 
ness and even death. But when some time passed and 
I saw how smoothly and steadily the boat went along over 
quiet water, I felt relieved. Then came something of 
gladness. I sat quietly in back of Aunt Masha, watching 
the full moon appearing and disappearing behind the 
clouds, and listening to our fellow travellers. Their 
faces, so worried and excited for weeks, looked peaceful 
and contented as they sat gazing at the moon and talking 
quietly and hopefully of the future in the new world. 

"How beautiful," I thought. "This is the way the rest 
of our journey will be." For in my ignorance I thought 
that we would sail all the way across in this little white 
boat and that the water would always be calm, and the 
wind gentle. When I whispered my thought to Aunt 
Masha she smiled at me over her shoulder, a queer, mean- 
ing little smile, which puzzled me. In the morning when 
we came to an enormous black and white steamer I re- 
membered Aunt Masha's smile and understood its 
meaning. 

We were deathly seasick the first three days. During 
that period I was conscious, it seems to me, only part 
of the time. I remember that once when I opened my 
eyes I seemed to see the steamer turn to one side and 
then disappear under water. Then I heard voices scream- 
ing, entreating, praying. I thought we were drowning, 
but I did not care. Nothing mattered now. On the 




ALL DAY WE SAT OR WALKED ABOUT IN THE SUN. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 63 

fourth day, I became again interested in life. I heard 
Aunt Masha moaning. A long time seemed to have 
passed since I saw her face. I tried to lift my head. 
Finding it impossible, I lay quietly listening, but it hurt 
me to hear her moaning. At last it became so pitiful 
that I could not stand it. 

"I'll die if I don't get a drop of water," she moaned, 
"just one drop to wet my throat." 

And so as I lay flat on my face I felt about for my 
tin cup till I found it. Then I began to slip downward 
feet first until I reached the berth underneath. From 
there I swung down to the floor. As I stood up the boat 
lunged to one side and I went flying to the door and fell 
in a heap, striking my head against the door post. I 
don't know how long I had been lying there, when I 
heard the cabin door open and a man's strong voice call 
out, "Up on deck." I opened my eyes and saw an 
enormous pair of black boots and the lower part of white 
trousers. 

The man stooped down, looked at me and gently 
brushed the hair away from my eyes. As I was used 
now to being pushed about and yelled at, the kind touch 
brought tears to my eyes. For the first time since I 
left home I covered my face with my hands and wept 
heartily. 

For a minute or so he stood looking down at me. Then 
he picked up my cup, which I had dropped in falling, 
and brought me water. I drank some, and pointed to 
Aunt Masha. He handed the cup to a woman who came 
tumbling out of her berth to go up on deck. Then pick- 
ing me up as if I were a little infant, he again shouted, 
"Up on deck !" and carried me off. 

I had heard that those who were very sick on the 



6 4 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 



steamer and those who died were thrown into the ocean. 
There was no doubt in my mind, therefore, that that was 
where I was being carried. I clasped my arms tightly 
about the man's neck. I felt sick with fear. He climbed 
up a white staircase and propped me up in a corner on 
the floor. Then he went away, to fetch a rope, I thought 
He returned in a few minutes. But instead of a rope 
there was half an orange in his hand. He kneeled down 
in front of me, raised my chin, showed me how to open 
my mouth and squeezed a few drops of juice into it. A 
good-natured smile played about his lips as he watched 
me swallow. Three times between his work he went and 
came with the half orange, until it was dry. 

After a while Aunt Masha came creeping up the 
steps on all fours, hugging our little bag of zwieback. 

From that hour we improved quickly. All day we sat 
or walked about in the sun. Soon Aunt Masha's little 
round nose was covered with freckles and my hair was 
bleached a half dozen shades. 

Sometimes while walking about on deck we passed 
the man who had fed me with orange juice. He always 
touched his cap and smiled to us. 

A week passed. 

One day, it was the first of July, Aunt Masha and I 
stood in Castle Garden. With fluttering hearts yet pa- 
tiently we stood scanning the faces of a group of Amer- 
icans divided from us by iron gates. 

"My father could never be among those wonderfully 
dressed people," I thought. Suddenly it seemed to me 
as if I must shout. I caught sight of a familiar smile. 

"Aunt Masha, do you see that man in the light tan 
suit ? The one who is smiling and waving his hand ?" 

"Why, you little goose," she cried, "don't you see? 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 65 

It's father!" She gave a laugh and a sob, and hid her 
face in her hands. 

A little while later the three of us stood clinging to 
one another. 



PART TWO 



PART TWO 



XV 



From Castle Garden we drove to our new home in 
a market wagon filled with immigrants' bedding. Father 
tucked us in among the bundles, climbed up beside the 
driver himself and we rattled off over the cobbled stone 
pavement, with the noon sun beating down on our heads. 

As we drove along I looked about in bewilderment. 
My thoughts were chasing each other. I felt a thrill: 
"Am I really in America at last?" But the next moment 
it would be checked and I felt a little disappointed, a lit- 
tle homesick. Father was so changed. I hardly ex- 
pected to find him in his black long tailed coat in which 
he left home. But of course yet with his same full grown 
beard and earlocks. Now instead I saw a young man 
with a closely cut beard and no sign of earlocks. As I 
looked at him I could scarcely believe my eyes. Father 
had been the most pious Jew in our neighbourhood. I 
wondered was it true then as Mindle said that "in Amer- 
ica one at once became a libertine"? 

Father's face was radiantly happy. Every now and 
then he would look over his shoulder and smile. But he 
soon guessed what troubled me for after a while he be- 
gan to talk in a quiet, reassuring manner. He told me 
he would take me to his own shop and teach me part of 
his own trade. He was a men's coat finisher. He made 
me understand that if we worked steadily and lived 
economically we should soon have money to send for 
those at home. "Next year at this time," he smiled, 

69 



70 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

"you yourself may be on the way to Castle Garden to 
fetch mother and the children." So I too smiled at the 
happy prospect, wiped some tears away and resolved 
to work hard. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 71 



XVI 



What I recall after this is an early morning when 
we were already established in a tiny room with peacock 
blue walls and a window looking into a grey courtyard. 
There was also a small table, a chair and a cot spread 
with a red comforter. We were having breakfast. But 
only Aunt Masha and I ate. Father sat opposite us, 
watched us dip our buttered roll into the hot coffee 
and asked many times, "Is it good?" His voice was 
soft with pity and tenderness. 

"It is delicious," we assured him. This was the first 
time in my life that I tasted coffee and the first time Aunt 
Masha and I had had enough to eat in a month. 

Before leaving for the shop that morning father told 
me that I should have to stay at home at least a week 
and "feed up." He said laughingly that I looked green 
in more than one sense. 

So we stayed home. And though we feared to venture 
out of the building we did not lack amusement. Every- 
thing was new and interesting. To me it was pure 
pleasure just to stay in our own room and look and 
examine our new American furniture, and try to imagine 
how mother and the children would be impressed. 

A great part of the time we stayed out on the stoop. 
I was dazed by all there was to see. I looked with won- 
der at the tall houses, the paved streets, the street lamps. 
As I had never seen a large city and only had had a 
glimpse of a small one, I thought these things true only 
of America. 

One day while Aunt Masha and I stood out on the 
stoop we saw a dark little man with a red bandana 



72 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

around his neck and a silver earring in his ear, wheeling 
what appeared to be a queer looking box. And when I 
saw him stop and make music come out of it, and the 
little girls that followed and others that joined begin 
swaying to the rhythm, their little pigtails flying, the 
little faces alive with enjoyment, I stood dumb with won- 
der. At this even Aunt Masha looked astonished. But 
the next moment she explained knowingly, "Don't you 
see, he goes about playing in the streets that the children 
may dance." That seemed very probable. I expected all 
sorts of wonderful things of America, though at home 
I had also heard things that were sad. 

I had heard one day the mistress of the Inn and Post 
Office talking of her two sons in America. I heard her 
say that they were machine operators and they had lost 
their feet at the sewing machine. I took it literally, as 
indeed I took everything else. So one day when I saw 
a rather tall boy of about fifteen pass our door on queer 
little wheels (roller skates) I could not keep tears 
out of my eyes. I thought that this must be a machine 
operator who lost his feet at the machine. That a boy 
of that age could go about in open daylight on a plain 
week day, amusing himself, would have never occurred 
to me. 

One night father came home from work a little earlier 
than usual and took us to Grand Street. I was dazzled 
by the lights, the display in the jewelry shops and dry 
goods store windows. But nothing surprised me so much 
as the figures in the hair dresser's window. One was a 
blonde, the other a brunette. One was in pink, the 
other in blue. Their hair was beautifully curled and 
dressed, each one with a mirror in one hand and the 
other held daintily on the back of the hair, went slowly 
turning around and around and smiling into the mirror. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 73 

At first I could not believe that they were not alive 
until father and Aunt Masha laughed at me. It seemed 
to me nothing short of a miracle to see how perfect the 
features were, the smile. And I thought, "Oh, America 
is truly wonderful! People are not shovelling gold in 
the streets, as I had heard, but still it is wonderful." 
When I told it to father he laughed. "Wait," he said. 
And then he took us to "Silver Smith Charlie's saloon" 
and I saw the floor studded with half dollars ! 

From Mrs. Felesberg we learned at once the more se- 
rious side of life in America. Mrs. Felesberg was the 
woman with whom we were rooming. A door from our 
room opened into her tiny bedroom and then led into 
the only other room where she sat a great part of the 
day finishing pants which she brought in big bundles 
from a shop, and rocking the cradle with one foot. She 
always made us draw our chairs quite close to her and 
she spoke in a whisper scarcely ever lifting her weak 
peering eyes from her work. When she asked us how 
we liked America, and we spoke of it with praise, she 
smiled a queer smile. "Life here is not all that it appears 
to the 'green horn/ " she said. She told us that her hus- 
band was a presser on coats and earned twelve dollars 
when he worked a full week. Aunt Masha thought 
twelve dollars a good deal. Again Mrs. Felesberg smiled. 
"No doubt it would be," she said, "where you used to 
live. You had your own house, and most of the food 
came from the garden. Here you will have to pay for 
everything; the rent!" she sighed, "for the light, for 
every potato, every grain of barley. You see these three 
rooms, including yours? Would they be too much for 
my family of five?" We had to admit they would not. 
"And even from these," she said, "I have to rent one 



74 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

Perhaps it was due to these talks that I soon noticed 
how late my father worked. When he went away in 
the morning it was still dark, and when he came home 
at night the lights in the halls were out. It was after 
ten o'clock. I thought that if mother and the children 
were here they would scarcely see him. 

One night when he came home and as he sat at the 
table eating his rice soup, which he and Aunt Masha had 
taught me to cook, I sat down on the cot and asked timid- 
ly, knowing that he was impatient of questions, "Father, 
does everybody in America live like this? Go to work 
early, come home late, eat and go to sleep? And the 
next day again work, eat, and sleep? Will I have to do 
that too? Always?" 

Father looked thoughtful and ate two or three mouth- 
fuls before he answered. "No," he said smiling. "You 
will get married." 

So, almost a week passed and though life was so in- 
teresting, still no matter where I went, what I saw, moth- 
er and home were always present in my mind. Often in 
the happiest moments a pain would rise in my throat 
and my eyes burned with the tears held back. At these 
moments I would manage to be near Aunt Masha so 
that I could lean against her, touch her dress. 

How Aunt Masha felt I never knew but once. Father 
brought each of us a black patent leather belt. One day 
she put hers on and came over to me. "Close your eyes, 
Rahel," she said, "and feel the belt on me." I did. And 
as I passed my hand around her waist, I said, "This is 
how grandmother used to see when we put on something 
new." When I opened my eyes I saw that Aunt Masha's 
face was wet with tears. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 75 



XVII 

I think it was at the end of a week that Aunt Masha 
received an offer at her old occupation as children's nurse. 
As it seemed to her a desirable place and as she wished 
to begin at once to pay off father for her steamer ticket, 
she accepted it. So one morning after father left for 
work a large good-looking woman, owner of a delicates- 
sen store, came for her. 

All that morning as she went about the room gather- 
ing her things and packing them into a bundle, she was 
flushed and excited and avoided meeting my eyes. 

When the bundle was tied and she was ready to leave 
she came and drew me towards her almost roughly. 
"Good-bye, Rahel." I felt her whole body shaking with 
sobs. "Remember," she commanded, "not to go alone 
any further than the stoop." And then she added a little 
sulkily, "No doubt you are glad to see me go." 

She took the bundle under her arm and followed the 
woman, and I went out and stood watching her until 
she disappeared through the long, dark, narrow hall. 
Soon I could hear only the click, click of her high slender 
heels on the wooden floor and on the stone steps. From 
the hall below the click still came up but faintly and I 
had to bend forward to catch it. Then I heard the 
street door slam, resound through the building, and all 
was silent. 



76 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XVIII 

During the first two days that followed I missed Aunt 
Masha dreadfully and felt ill with homesickness, lone- 
liness and even fear. While in my room I tried to find 
the pleasure and interest of the first days. But now the 
table, the cot, the chair were merely strange things which 
seemed to stare at me coldly. Neither could I stay out on 
the stoop. I tried to do so the first day but felt too timid 
to go any further than the door. There, as I stood for 
a few minutes, looking at the people passing back and 
forth, at the houses across the street, the feeling came to 
me suddenly that I was utterly alone. "There is not a 
face that I know," I thought. "Not a spot that is familiar 
to me. Where are father and Aunt Masha ?" I tried to 
picture them. I saw many streets, rows and rows of 
brick houses, crowds of people but I could not see their 
faces anywhere. With a sick feeling of fear I shrank 
back into the hall. 

Father never knew how I was troubled. By the time he 
came home at night I was asleep or pretended to be. 

One day, while wandering about through the tenement, 
trying to amuse myself by walking up and down the steps, 
so as not to think of home, I reached the top floor and 
found that there were no more steps to climb. But in- 
stead I saw an open door which seemed to lead into an 
open space. I stepped over the threshold and stood still. 
I was not sure that this place was safe to walk upon. 
Then seeing that it was large, square and solid. I thought 
"It is a floor, built on top of a house. ,, 

I walked to the centre and looked about. I saw roofs 
and sky on all sides. On some of the roofs I was sur- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 77 

prised to see clothes on ropes fluttering in the wind. Here 
and there from buildings standing out among the rest, I 
saw flags waving. But what I looked at with joy after 
a momentary glance at these, was the sky! It was like 
finding unexpectedly some one dear from home. I sat 
down on the door step in the shade and looked at the 
sky and thought: 

"The sky is the same everywhere. There is only one. 
Perhaps mother, too, sister or some one at home is look- 
ing at it at this very moment. ,, 

This thought made home seem a little nearer. Then 
I remembered grandmother saying : 

"When it is day in America it is night in Russia." 

"Oh," I thought, "so they are asleep now!" 

In a moment I was far away from Cherry Street. I 
was in our log house. I stopped at mother's bed. I 
looked at the children sleeping at the foot of it. I peeped 
into the cradle. I passed close to grandfather's bench near 
the stove. I stopped at grandmother's bed and looked 
at the empty place which was mine. 

Suddenly I became aware of some one standing back 
of me. I looked over my shoulder and saw Mrs. Feles- 
berg with baby in her arms. I felt ashamed of my tears 
and hid my face in my hands. She did not say anything 
but sat down on the step close to me, put her arm around 
me and gently drew me towards her until my face rested 
in her lap beside baby's small cheek. 

From that day the baby became a great comfort to 
me. I amused him, rocked him and carried him about in 
my arms when he cried. Often as I walked up and down 
the floor with him, singing him to sleep, he sent his little 
hand out, and caressed my face. The touch of the tiny 
fingers on my eyes would make me feel less lonely. 

When Saturday came I felt happy because father 



78 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

stayed at home. After dinner we went out into the street. 
I walked beside father, clasping his hand tightly. I 
looked about and wondered how people could find their 
way without seeming to think about it. All the streets, 
all the houses, seemed so very much alike. 

Father stopped at a fruitstand and told me to choose 
what I wanted. There was nothing strange to me in 
that. At home when we sold fruit, as we did sometimes 
during the summer, Jewish people came on Saturday to 
eat apples or pears for which they paid the following 
week. So I thought it was the same here. 

I looked and looked at the fruit : "What shall I take ?" 
Apples, oranges, plums, pears — all were arranged in neat 
pyramids, all looked good and very tempting, surrounded 
by fresh green leaves, glistening with drops of water. I 
looked at the strange fruits also. I saw long finger like 
things with smooth yellow skins, and grapes which I knew 
by name only. In a glass case on a square of ice there 
were some slices of watermelon. 

"What shall I take ?" I asked, turning to father. "Any- 
thing you like," he smiled encouragingly. I decided on a 
slice of melon. I looked up into father's face. I felt 
proud of him that he had credit at so beautiful a fruit- 
stand. 

As I received the melon in my fingers I saw father 
take his hand out of his pocket and hold out a coin. I 
felt the blood rush to my face. I stood staring at him 
for a moment. Then I dropped the melon on the pave- 
ment and ran. Before I had taken many steps I realised 
that I was running away from home and turned back. 
In passing the stand I did not look to see if father was 
still there but ran on. 

"My father has touched coin on the Sabbath!" 

These words rang in my ears. I was almost knocked 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 79 

over by people into whom I ran but I paid no attention. 
Others stopped to watch me curiously as I ran by. It 
seemed to me that it was because they knew what I had 
just seen and I ran on with my cheeks flaming. 

Suddenly it seemed to me that I had been running a 
long while and I felt that I should be near home. I 
stopped and looked about, but I could not see the house 
anywhere. I ran further, looking about wildly and try- 
ing to remember things so as to locate myself. Suddenly 
I came upon a dressmaker's sign which I recognised. I 
hurried into my room, closed the door carefully, and 
threw myself down on the cot, burying my face into the 
pillow. 

"Father carries money about with him on the Sabbath. 
Oh, the sin! Oh, poor grandmother, ,, I thought, "how 
would she feel if she knew. Brother is only seven years 
old and already he is so pious that he wishes to remain 
with a learned Jew in Russia, after mother goes to Amer- 
ica, that he may become a great Rabbi. How would he 
feel? How would they all feel?" 

Then I remembered Yanna, who, on hearing that fath- 
er was in America, and feeling that perhaps we were too 
happy over it, came one day to torment grandmother. 

"The first thing men do in America," she had said, "is 
cut their beards and the first thing the women do is to 
leave off their wigs. And you," she had said, turning 
to me venomously, "you who will not break a thread on 
the Sabbath now, will eat swine in America." 

"Oh, God," I thought, "will it really come to that? 
shall I eat swine?" 

After what I had just seen nothing seemed impossible. 
In utter misery I turned and felt about with my burning 
cheek for a cooler place on the pillow. As I did so I re- 



8o 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 



membered that the pillow was one which mother gave me 
from home. I slipped my arms under it and pressing my 
lips to it I wept. "No, I shall not eat swine, indeed I 
shall not !" 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 81 



XIX 

On the following day father came home at noon and 
took me along to the shop where he worked. We climbed 
the dark, narrow stairs of a tenement house on Monroe 
Street and came into a bright room filled with noise. I 
saw about five or six men and a girl. The men turned 
and looked at us when we passed. I felt scared and 
stumbled. One man asked in surprise : 

"Avrom, is this your daughter? Why, she is only a 
little girl !" 

My father smiled. "Yes," he said, "but wait till you 
see her sew." 

He placed me on a high stool opposite the girl, laid a 
pile of pocket flaps on the little narrow table between 
us, and showed me how to baste. 

All afternoon I sat on my high stool, a little away from 
the table, my knees crossed tailor fashion, basting flaps. 
As I worked I watched the things which I could see by 
just raising my eyes a little. I saw that the girl, who 
was called Atta, was very pretty. 

A big man stood at a big table, examining, brushing 
and folding coats. There was a window over his table 
through which the sun came streaming in, showing mil- 
lions of specks of dust dancing over the table and circling 
over his head. He often puffed out his cheeks and blew 
the dust from him with a great gust so that I could feel 
his breath at our table. 

The machines going at iull speed drowned everything 
in their noise. But when they stopped for a moment I 
caught the clink of a scissors laid hastily on a table, a 
short question and answer exchanged, and the pounding 



82 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

of a heavy iron from the back of the room. Sometimes 
the machines stopped for a whole minute. Then the men 
looked about and talked. I was always glad when the 
machines started off again. I felt safer in their noise. 

Late in the afternoon a woman came into the shop. 
She sat down next to Atta and began to sew on buttons. 
Father, who sat next to me, whispered, "This is Mrs. 
Nelson, the wife of the big man, our boss. She is a real 
American." 

She, too, was pretty. Her complexion was fair and 
delicate like a child's. Her upper lip was always covered 
with shining drops of perspiration. I could not help look- 
ing at it all the time. 

When she had worked a few minutes she asked father 

in very imperfect Yiddish : "Well, Mr. , have you 

given your daughter an American name?" 

"Not yet," father answered. "What would you call 
her? Her Yiddish name is Rahel." 

"Rahel, Rahel," Mrs. Nelson repeated to herself, 
thoughtfully, winding the thread around a button; "let 
me see." The machines were going slowly and the men 
looked interested. 

The presser called out from the back of the room : 
"What is there to think about? Rahel is Rachel." 

I was surprised at the interest every one showed. Later 
I understood the reason. The slightest cause for inter- 
ruption was welcome, it broke the monotony of the long 
day. 

Mrs. Nelson turned to me : "Don't let them call you 
Rachel. Every loafer who sees a Jewish girl shouts 
'Rachel' after her. And on Cherry Street where you 
live there are many saloons and many loafers. How 
would you like Ruth for a name?" 

I said I should like to be called Ruth. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 83 



XX 



Father made the life for me as easy as he could. But 
there were many hardships he could not prevent. 

We began the day at six in the morning. I would 
stand dressing with my eyes closed and feel about for 
my buttons. But once I was out on the street and felt 
the moist early morning air I was wide awake at once. 

When we had been in the shop about an hour a grey- 
bearded little old man used to come in lugging a big 
basket of food covered with black oil cloth. He was the 
shop pedlar. He always stopped near the door, rested 
his basket against it and groaned: "Oh, the stairs, the 
stairs in America !" The men looked at him with pity and 
Atta at the sight of him would sometimes begin to sing 
"The Song of the Pedlar." If the boss was not in the 
shop or the men were not very busy, one of them would 
take the basket from the pedlar and place it on a chair in 
the middle of the room. Then each shop hand picked out 
a roll and the little old man poured him out a tiny glass 
of brandy for two cents. Father used to buy me an apple 
and a sweetened roll. We ate while we worked. I used 
to think two cents a good deal to spend for my break- 
fast. But often I was almost sick with hunger. At noon 
we had our big meal. Then father would send me out 
for half a pound of steak or a slice of beef liver and a 
pint of beer which he sometimes bought in partnership 
with two or three other men. He used to broil the steak 
in the open coal fireplace where the presser heated his 
irons, and cut it into tiny squares. He always picked out 
the juiciest bits and pushed them to my side of the plate, 
and while there was still quite some meat he would lay 



84 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

down his fork and push his chair away from the table 
with an air as if he had had more than enough. He also 
got me to drink beer. Before long I could drink a full 
glass. But I did not like it. One day it made me quite 
sick. After that I refused to drink it. 

I liked my work and learned it easily, and father was 
pleased with me. As soon as I knew how to baste pocket- 
flaps he began to teach me how to baste the coat edges. 
This was hard work. The double ply of overcoat cloth 
stitched in with canvas and tape made a very stiff edge. 
My fingers often stiffened with pain as I rolled and 
basted the edges. Sometimes a needle or two would 
break before I could do one coat. Then father would of- 
fer to finish the edge for me. But if he gave me my 
choice I never let him. At these moments I wanted so 
to master the thing myself that I felt my whole body 
trembling with the desire. And with my habit of per- 
sonifying things, I used to bend over the coat on my 
lap, force the obstinate and squeaking needle, wet with 
perspiration, in and out of the cloth and whisper with 
determination: "No, you shall not get the best of me!" 
When I succeeded I was so happy that father, who often 
watched me with a smile, would say, "Rahel, your face 
is shining. Now rest a while." He always told me to 
rest after I did well. I loved these moments. I would 
push my stool closer to the wall near which I sat, lean 
my back against it, and look about the shop. 

Sitting so, I could see Atta and all the six men at work. 
The baster sat, Turk-like, on his table. He was small and 
slight. His skin was almost as dark as a negro's and his 
features resembled a bull dog's. But his was an unusual- 
ly bright face. His black eyes flashed with intelligence. 
And when he laughed, showing his white, even teeth, I 
liked to look at him. Sometimes he would raise his eyes 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 85 

suddenly from his work, assume an earnest expression, 
open his eyes wide and look at me intently. Then I 
would know that I had been staring. 

The boss moved about heavily at his big table. I could 
not help looking at him when he spoke or laughed, — his 
nostrils always dilated and whitened. He often came 
over to our table to borrow Atta's wax or small scissors. 
Almost every time he came he tried to pinch her cheek 
or take hold of her hand. She always dodged, threatened 
him with the point of her needle, and said half seriously, 
half jestingly, "Keep your hands off, please." This was 
the first sentence I learned in English. 

The man in the shop who interested me most was the 
presser. He was almost black and he had a small black 
beard. His features were regular and good but there was 
no life in his face and his voice had a tired ring in it. 
His back was enormous, his chest narrow and he lifted 
his twenty-five pound iron with difficulty. I often felt 
sad when I looked at him without knowing why and was 
glad when he sent me on an errand. 

He was the jest in the shop. He had been six years in 
this country and had not yet decided whether he should 
send for his wife or, as he often said, "Take a souvenir 
of America and go home to Russia." The men teased 
him about his wife and little girl who, they said, would 
be a woman by the time he decided. I, too, often won- 
dered, "Will he go home? And what will he take as a 
remembrance ?" 

One day when I was not busy I went over and asked 
him if he wanted me to go on an errand. He put down 
his iron on the flat stone which he used as a stand, and 
looked at me thoughtfully. "No," he said. As I turned 
away he called me back. 

"Rahel," he said, "if you were my little girl in Europe. 



86 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

what would you like me to bring you from America ?" 
I thought for a moment and said, "Earrings/' 

When he came in the next morning he had a massive 
gold watch and chain, a marriage ring, and a small pair 
of earrings. 

A week later there was another presser in the shop, 
one with a straight back and a red beard. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 87 



XXI 



One day a jewelry pedlar came into the shop. He 
showed us a watch. He told the men that the watch was 
of fourteen karat gold. But he would sell it cheaply, for 
fifteen dollars, because it was "second hand." 

The assistant machine operator bought the watch for 
ten dollars. He was living on very little in order to 
save and send for his family in Russia. "But a good 
watch/' he figured, "is as good as cash, lasts a lifetime. ,, 
The men all congratulated the operator and teased, 
"Morris, you shall have to treat to-night." 

"I certainly will," he said heartily. "1*11 treat the whole 
shop." 

I learned to look forward to these little merry makings 
and love them. How they also shortened the day ! 

At noon Morris, the operator, went down as usual to 
his dinner. He returned in a few minutes looking so 
pale. Even his lips were white. And when he began to 
talk his voice trembled. He told the men that he had 
been to a pawn shop and that he was told the watch 
was worth at most three dollars. The men were shocked. 
They held a short consultation and finally told Morris 
that they would raffle the watch off. Each of them paid 
a dollar and a half. Morris himself won the watch. 

That night we stopped work an hour earlier. Morris 
bought two pints of beer and some bologna and we 
feasted. 

I liked the life in the shop yet there were times when 
I felt unhappy. The men often told vulgar jokes. The 
first time this happened father looked at me and groaned. 

"Don't listen," he said, "or pretend you don't hear." 



88 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

But I could never keep my face from turning red. 

One day when Atta and I were alone at our table she 
said: 

"It is too bad that you have a 'tell tale face/ You 
better learn to hide your feelings. What you hear in this 
shop is nothing compared with what you will hear in 
other shops. Look at me." But when I would look over 
at Atta it seemed to me that her needle actually flew in 
and out of her sleeve lining and her pretty little mouth 
looked more pursed than usual. 






OUT OF THE SHADOW 89 



XXII 

When I learned to find my way home alone my hours 
were not so long. For father was a piece worker and as I 
was only helping him he could do as he pleased with my 
time. And so now I came into the shop at seven o'clock 
in the morning and found my roll and apple already wait- 
ing for me. And when I went home at seven o'clock in 
the evening it was still broad daylight. 

Our room was a dingy place where the sun never came 
in. I always felt lonely and a little homesick on coming 
into it. But I would soon shake off the feeling. I would 
cook and eat some soup and then go and stand on the 
stoop and watch the children playing. 

One night as I came out of our room into the hall I 
caught a few strains of music coming from the roof. I 
went up and found under the sky, blue and bright with 
the stars and the city lights twinkling all around, a group 
of Irish-American girls and boys waltzing to the music 
of a harmonica. I sat down in the shadow near one of 
the chimneys and watched the stars and the dancing and 
listened to the song of "My Beautiful Irish Maid." 

After this I went up every evening. At first the girls 
and boys showed that I was not welcome by making 
ugly grimaces at me. But as I persisted, for I wanted to 
know the Americans, they became used to seeing me. 
And soon they paid no more attention to me than to the 
chimney near which I sat. 

On Friday I worked only the first half of the day, 
then I would go home to do the washing and cleaning in 
our room. All morning I would count the hours and half 
hours and my heart beat with joy at the thought that I 



90 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

would soon leave the shop. When at last I heard the 
noon whistle from the big paper factory on Water Street 
I used to bend my head low to hide this joy. I felt 
ashamed at my eagerness to leave off work. When I 
came out into the street I had to stand still for a while 
and look about. I felt dazed by the light and the air and 
the joy of knowing that I was free. For at these mo- 
ments I did not remember the work at home. I would 
start to walk along slowly, linger under the trees, of 
which there was one here and there on Cherry Street, 
and watch the children on the way home from school to 
lunch. In their white summery dresses and with books 
under their arms, they appeared to me like wonderful 
little beings of a world entirely different from mine. I 
watched and envied them. But I often consoled myself 
with the thought, "When our children come they too will 
go to school." 

On the stoop I lingered too. I watched the children 
playing jacks and from minute to minute I put off going 
in. At last with a feeling of guilt I would realise that 
the afternoon was almost gone and my work not even 
begun. But it was at such moments that I did my best 
and quickest work. I would rush upstairs, catch up the 
bundle of soiled clothes under my arm and run down 
into the cellar to the wash tubs. Once the washing was 
done I did not feel so guilty, and by the time I was at 
the floor, which I scrubbed with great swishes of water, 
I sang cheerfully, "After the Ball is Over." 

On Saturday father and I used to go to see Aunt 
Masha. The first time we went and asked to see her, 
her mistress opened a door in the back of the store and 
called in a shrill voice, "Jen-nie — , Jennie." To my sur- 
prise it was Aunt Masha that came out. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 91 



XXIII 

Kate, Mrs. Felesberg's eldest daughter, and I became 
friends. She was seventeen, tall, flat looking and stoop- 
ing. But her face was very pretty. Her blue-grey eyes 
twinkled with mischief and her manner was shy and 
bold at the same time. She was also a great tease. She 
teased me constantly because on a Saturday, the Sab- 
bath, I would not light the gas nor carry my handker- 
chief in my hand on the street, nor would I sit down to 
a meal at any time before washing my hands and say- 
ing grace. 

"You are like an old woman/' she used to say laugh- 
ingly. "You are more fit for Palestine where the aged 
are spending their last days, than for America." 

She also called me "little village maiden." I think this 
hurt most. And so I kept away from her. But there 
was one thing about Kate to which I finally succumbed. 
She had a beautiful voice and when she sang I forgave 
her everything and longed to go to her and finally I did. 

And now of an evening I stayed in my room and lis- 
tened to Kate singing and talking about boys. 

Besides the door which led into the hall of the tene- 
ment and the one that opened into the Felesberg flat there 
was still another door in our room. Against this our cot 
stood. There were two rooms on the other side, in which 
lived a plump, wrinkled little old woman who wore a 
bit of red worsted around her wrist to keep off the "Evil 
Eye." With her lived her son, who was single because 
he would not marry "a worn out shop girl," and a 
boarder. Kate talked constantly about the boarder and 



92 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

often half in fun, half in earnest, threw kisses at the 
door. 

She told me that he was a machine operator "but he 
looked like a student." It was while sitting on the cot, 
with her eyes on this door, that she sang her best. Her 
sweet, clear voice filled our dull room, escaped through 
the window and filled the grey yard. People always 
stood at the window in the house opposite when Kate 
sang. And from the other side of the door came little 
bursts of applause. 

One night, after Kate had sung one of her Russian 
songs, we heard a body press against the door and a 
boyish voice call through the keyhole, "More! sing 
more !" Kate became almost hysterical with ecstasy. She 
gave me a pinch, a nudge and a slap, which she had a 
habit of doing, when she was gay and excited, and bend- 
ing down to the keyhole she said, "Supposing you sing 
now." 

"Not after hearing you," he said. "But I would like 
to see you sing as well as hear. May I come in?" 

Kate lifted her flushed face, told me what he said, and 
giggled. "He wants to come in!" 

I was curious to see the boy and watch the two meet 
but I did not want him to come in because father would 
be home soon and would want his supper. But as I did 
not know how to refuse I said, "Let him come." Kate 
barely had time to settle herself on the cot and control 
her giggles and I to place the chair for him at the little 
table, when there was a knock at the door. I opened it 
and saw a boy about eighteen with pale, thin cheeks and 
bright dark eyes. He stood expectant and smiling. But 
his face sobered and he seemed surprised when he saw 
me. I opened the door wide and when he saw Kate's 
pink, shimmering face, his own brightened again. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 93 

He sat down on the chair and we two girls sat on 
the cot. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes and 
Kate did not know where to look. Finally he began in 
English. Of course, I did not understand what they 
were saying. They paid no attention to me and soon I 
forgot them too, though it was about them that I thought. 
I saw Kate and the boy engaged and married. They 
were living in a beautiful house on Grand Street where 
you had to ring a bell to go in. A little one toddled 
about in their rooms and they were happy. One day 
suddenly I felt Kate shaking me and saying, "Ruth, 
Ruth, what shall we do? I hear your father's steps 
in the hall !" I stood up a little dazed. I saw her run and 
lock the door. Then bidding the boy a quick fare- 
well she hurried into her own rooms and closed the door 
behind her. In the meantime father was at this door 
turning the knob. Finding it locked he knocked gently. 
Without clearly knowing why, I suddenly felt dreadfully 
embarrassed and irritated that Kate locked the door. I 
went and unlocked it and father came in. He saw the vis- 
itor at once and stood looking at him, first with surprise, 
then with astonishment and finally with anger. He went 
over to the table, put down the loaf of bread which he al- 
ways brought when he came, and opening the door wide 
he pointed and said angrily in Russian "Vone !" 

When the boy went out and the door was closed 
father turned to me. His face looked so angry that I 
trembled. 

"This is very pretty conduct," he said. "And you are 
not yet thirteen." 

I began to cry and explain at once. But father never 
listened to explanations, and commanded me to be silent 
at the very first word. 

The next day I told Kate what father said and how he 



94 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

felt about me, thinking that she would go and explain to 
him. But she just laughed. 

I felt deeply hurt and disappointed, and I could not 
forget the boy's face as he left our room. 

And now a different life began for me. Father think- 
ing that he had given me too much freedom and had 
spoiled me went to the other extreme. He began to treat 
me so severely that I could scarcely lift my head. He 
suspected me at every step and found fault and blamed 
me for everything that happened. 

One Saturday while standing out on the stoop I saw 
one little girl show a cent to another and boasting that 
she was going to buy candy. Seeing money handled on 
Sabbath had long lost its horror for me. It occurred to 
me that I too would like to have a cent with which to do 
just as I pleased. I went up at once to our room and asked 
father as he lay resting on the cot. He looked at me 
silently for a long moment. Then he rose slowly, took 
out his pocket book, took a cent from it, held it out to me, 
and said with a frown that reminded me of Aunt Masha, 
"Here, and see that this never happens again." 

I felt as if the coin were burning my fingers. I handed 
it back quickly, left the room and walked about in the 
streets. I felt mortally hurt. I felt that I was working 
from morning till night like a grown up person and yet 

when I wanted one single cent . When evening came 

I went home, cooked the rice and milk, as usual, put it 
on the table and then sat down away from it at the 
farthest end of the cot. Father ate a few spoonfuls and 
then commanded: "Sit down at the table and eat your 
supper." 

"I am not hungry," I answered. And indeed I was 
not. I could never eat when I was miserable. The food 
always seemed to stick in my throat. Father com- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 95 

manded, "Eat whether you want to or not. Eat because 
I say so !" Again I repeated that I was not hungry. He 
looked at me and said : "Oh, you are sulking ? Very well, 
we shall see." Without haste he laid down his spoon, 
took down our coarse linen roller towel which I brought 
from home, twisted it carefully into a rope and came 
over to me. Poor father, I know now that he hated to 
hurt me and took long to prepare to give me time to 
change my mind. "Will you eat?" he asked. I coughed 
to steady my voice and said "No." He struck me across 
the back. My only thought now was not to cry out. 
"On the right is the little old woman and her family, on 
the left the Felesbergs. They will hear me. I'll never 
be able to raise my head before any of them again." And 
I prayed for strength. 

Father never did anything by halves. I felt the towel 
across my back again and again. Finally he threw it 
down and said, panting for breath, "Girl, I'll break you 
if you don't change." And I said in my heart, "My 
father, we shall see !" 

He turned out the gas, went out, slamming the door 
after him so that the windows rattled. 

When it was all quiet, a door opened in our room and 
Mrs. Felesberg came in with a light and a bottle of 
vaseline. 



96 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XXIV 

Now I felt lonely still oftener. For I missed father's 
confidence and tenderness and Kate's friendship and to 
this unhappiness more was soon added. 

Father and I were on our block one day, walking 
toward home, when a boy in uniform coming toward 
us walked into me with so much force that I stumbled 
backward a few steps and for a minute could not catch 
my breath. Father looked at me and began to scold as 
usual now : "How often have I told you to keep to 
the right. There is no room for dreamers here." 

It had seemed to me that the boy struck against me 
intentionally but I was not sure. The next day it hap- 
pened again and now my peace was gone. The boy 
lived in the same building and as often as I met him 
he hurt me. He never passed me without shoving his 
elbow into my side or giving my braid a tug so that it 
felt as if the skin on my forehead would burst. He was 
as tall as I was and as my hair reached below my waist, 
he could do this by a slight movement of the hand while 
his arm hung innocently at his side. He always did it 
so quickly that I could never catch him at it and I don't 
believe any one else ever saw him do it. But his fa- 
vourite way of hurting was to assume an absent-minded 
expression wiien he saw me coming, look about, and walk 
into me, striking my chest with his elbow. This lasted 
for weeks and my life became a nightmare to me. I be- 
gan to be afraid to be out on the street. I never left 
the building without looking up and down the block first. 
Now that father treated me so harshly I did not like to 
talk to him about it, thinking that he would lay the blame 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 97 

on me. And as for striking the boy, it did not even occur 
to me to do so. He was a messenger boy but I did not 
know it. And even if I had it would not have made any 
difference. For I, as my grandfather, looked upon uni- 
forms with fear and respect. And beside too, he was a 
Gentile and "this country was his." 

One Saturday morning I rose earlier than usual. I 
felt happier than I had been for a long time. I had won 
my father's favour the day before by doing a particularly 
hard piece of work. He was so pleased that he showed it 
to the boss and smiled at me in the old way. At noon 
when I left to go and do the work at home, he came out 
with me, took me to a shoe store and bought me shoes. 

And so this morning early, as soon as father went to 
synagogue, I too rose and tidied the room. Then I 
combed out my hair carefully and let it loose. I put 
on my brown clean calico and my new shoes. These 
were my first American shoes and though they were 
much too large and my feet looked rather clumsy in 
them, — father believed that clothes for children should 
be large enough to grow in, — still they were new and the 
buttons and patent leather tips shone and so I was 
pleased. As soon as I was quite ready I went out to 
stand on the stoop. I scarcely ever went walking now, 
as I was in constant fear of meeting the messenger boy. 
I had not been on the stoop long when I saw him coming 
from the Clinton Street side. My heart began to beat 
so that it pained and all my happiness was gone in a 
moment. But immediately I comforted myself with the 
thought that I was on the far end of the stoop and that 
he could not possibly hurt me when I stood there be- 
cause the stoop was so wide and he would have to walk 
up the end he reached first. I pressed close to the iron 
railing at my end and watched him coming. He walked 



98 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

with a swagger this morning. When he came nearer I 
saw a new cap in place of the old one in which I had 
always seen him. The little brass button on each side of 
the peak sparkled as he moved his head. 

Suddenly he saw me. Immediately he slackened his 
pace, assumed his absent-minded expression and began 
looking about. My heart beat more violently. What 
should I do? Run upstairs? I felt sure he would find 
a way to hurt me. But I always hated to run away. 
I stood still, almost holding my breath as he came nearer 
and nearer. As he walked along slowly he kept looking 
dreamily across the street and passed beyond our even 
end of the stoop a step or two. Then, as if he suddenly 
realised it he stopped, looked about and came back. And 
now he must pass close to me. The next moment I felt 
my toes crushed under his heel. I caught hold of the iron 
railing and closed my eyes for a moment. Then I looked 
down at my new shoes. One tip was broken and my toes 
inside felt moist. I looked at the boy for he had stopped 
right opposite me. He was so sure of me and stood 
gazing far away and whistling softly. All at once a 
feeling of hatred came into my heart, my temples began 
to throb and now I did not see his uniform nor did I 
remember, as I had often told myself, that this country of 
America was his. With one step I reached him, snatched 
off his cap and ran and threw it into the gutter and began 
to stamp on it. I broke the brim. I crushed the little brass 
buttons under my heels, I stamped it into the dirt and 
in a moment it did not look like a cap. But I was not 
yet satisfied. A few feet away I saw a little puddle 
of water. I kicked the cap into it and began stamping 
on it all over again. At last my strength began to give 
out and I became aware that a number of people had 
gathered and that the boy stood among them, gaping at 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 99 

me. I stopped stamping, tossed back my hair which had 
fallen all about my face, and passed close to him. I 
thought, "If he touches me I'll strike him down." But 
he did not. The people who stood about were staring 
at me and talking. When I came upstairs and looked 
at myself in the glass I thought they must have been 
saying, "The fury," or "The wild thing." My hair was 
all tangled and seemed to stand up. My face was drip- 
ping wet and covered with pink and white blotches, and 
my eyes looked wild. 

I locked the door and sat all morning laughing and 
crying hysterically and listening for a policeman's heavy 
footsteps in the hall. I felt sure that a policeman would 
come and drag me to prison. But when the day passed 
and nothing happened I became bolder, and in the eve- 
ning, when I knew the boy would be coming out of the 
building, I went out on the street. I was curious now as 
to what would happen next. The boy came out, saw me 
and passed me quickly and at a good distance away. I 
laughed quietly to myself and began to walk toward 
Montgomery Street, where I saw the light of a street 
lamp shining on a tree. 



ioo OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XXV 

One evening in the Fall father came home with two 
brightly coloured frameless pictures and nailed one on 
the door leading into the Felesberg's rooms and the other 
on the door leading into the little old woman's. He 
explained to me that the pictures were of the two men, 
nominated for the presidential office. The prospective 
presidents in these pictures were herdsmen. Each one, 
dressed in fine black clothes and a high silk hat, stood 
in the midst of a herd of cattle. In one picture the herds- 
man was short, stout and clean shaven, the cattle were 
round and sleek and the pasture green and abundant. In 
the other it was just the reverse. The herdsman was 
tall, thin and bearded, the cattle had fallen-in sides, and 
the ground was brown and bare. 

I looked at the pictures and took them literally and 
seriously. One meant four years of plenty, the other 
four years of famine. But after a while, noticing that 
no one else seemed at all worried over it, I merely won- 
dered, "What happens on election day?" 

Soon after this I saw the Gentile boys on our block 
begin to store away, into a cellar, all the barrels, boxes, 
broken couches, torn mattresses, and every stick of wood 
they could lay hands on. I understood that the prepara- 
tions were for election night and I looked on silently 
with pleasant excitement. 

At last election day came. In the shop the men were 
discussing the candidates and there was a cheerful holi- 
day atmosphere. "I bet you a pint of beer Harrison will 
be elected." "I bet you two pints it will be Cleveland." 
In the afternoon I heard the men say they would go 




1 SAW THE JEWISH MEN HURRYING 
HOME FROM WORK. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 101 

home early. When I was leaving father too said he 
would be home before dark. 

After supper I climbed out on Mrs. Felesberg's fire 
escape and looked down between the bars into the street. 
I saw the Jewish men hurrying home from work and 
noticed that very few of the Jewish children were out. 
The Gentile boys were busy dragging forth the barrels 
and couches and mattresses and piling them up in a 
heap in front of the four big tenements inhabited chiefly 
by Jews. 

When it grew dark they lit the heaps of rubbish and 
in a moment there was a great blaze. The sparks flew, 
the fire crackled and the reflections of the flames danced 
merrily on the small red brick houses opposite, where the 
Gentiles lived. From the windows of these houses groups 
of people were leaning out talking and laughing merrily. 
Mrs. Felesberg also stuck her head out of the window 
for a moment, looked down at the flame and said ear- 
nestly: "Thank God, there is no wind. And if it comes 
I hope it will blow the other way." I was beginning to 
feel uneasy and wished that father had come home 
before dark, as he said he would. Scarcely any one 
passed through the block now. I noticed with fear that 
not a Jew was to be seen on the street. After a little 
while I saw some one coming from the Montgomery 
Street side. Though I expected father to come through 
Clinton Street it occurred to me that perhaps he had 
decided this other way was safer, and I strained my eyes 
and watched. When the person came nearer I saw that 
it was the son of the little old woman. He walked 
slowly, hesitatingly and kept to the wall. The men and 
boys around the fire seemed to pay no attention to his 
coming, but as soon as he was in front of the fire they 



102 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

suddenly attacked him. There was a short tussle and 
soon I saw him rushed into the hall. 

I was beside myself with fear now. "Why doesn't 
father come? Why did I leave him?" I could not help 
blaming myself. 

Again Mrs. Felesberg came over and looked out of 
the window and asked, "Isn't your father here yet, 
Rahel?" 

"No," I shook my head. I could not answer her. I 
pressed my forehead to the iron bars and looked over to 
Clinton Street. Every time the fire was poked the whole 
block was lit up and I could see all the way over to the 
corner. I thought I saw a figure lurking away over in 
the shadow. "Could that be father?" I thought. "Per- 
haps it is some other Jewish man. Oh God, will he ever 
come !" 

At last I saw him turn from Clinton into Cherry 
Street. The blaze flared suddenly and I recognised his 
tan suit and hat. I jumped up, leaned over the fire escape 
and watched him coming nearer and nearer, keeping in 
the middle of the sidewalk. The boys and men stood 
about the fire laughing, talking, pushing each other. One 
was playing on a harmonica and a few were waltzing. 

At last I saw father almost opposite the blaze. My 
heart stood still and my eyes felt stretched so far apart 
that it seemed as though I could never close them again. 

"Will they let him pass? Oh, that is too good to be 
true." And indeed it was. The next moment I saw a 
black mass of bodies hurl itself at him. 

"Father!" I screamed down. My voice struck terror 
into my own heart. The next moment I was rushing 
blindly through Mrs. Felesberg's rooms, lit only by the 
blaze from the outside, knocking myself against table 
and chairs. At last I was out in the hall and went fall- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 103 

ing and tumbling down stairs. On the first floor I met 
him coming up, pale and hatless. We stopped and looked 
at each other. I was beside myself with joy to see him 
alive but I heard myself say, "Father, your hat!" And 
he smiled and said pantingly, "That is nothing, I needed 
a new one." 



104 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XXVI 

I had seen from the first that Jews were treated 
roughly on Cherry Street. I had seen the men and boys 
that stood about the saloons at every corner make ugly 
grimaces at the passing Jews and throw after them stones 
and shoes pulled out of the ash cans. I had often seen 
these "loafers," as we called them, attack a Jewish 
pedlar, dump his push cart of apples into the gutter, 
fill their pockets and walk away laughing and eating. I 
had run for the apples in the gutter, rolling in every di- 
rection, and helped to pick them up. I myself had often 
walked two blocks out of my way to reach home through 
Montgomery Street instead of going through Clinton 
Street where there were three saloons. And yet as soon 
as I was safe in the house I scarcely gave the matter a 
second thought. Perhaps it was because to see a Jew 
maltreated was nothing new for me. Here where there 
were so many new and strange things for me to see and 
understand this was the one familiar thing. I had grown 
used to seeing strange Jews mistreated whenever they 
happened to come to our village in Russia. 

But after election night I felt differently. I was 
haunted by the picture of the little old woman's son 
struggling with the young Irish-Americans near the 
bonfire, and of my father coming up the stairs, pale 
and hatless. I was never easy in my mind now except 
when I was with father. I always sat up at night until 
he came home; and if he happened to be a few minutes 
late I was beside myself with fear. I pictured him mur- 
dered and burned alive. I listened to every tale about 
Cherry and Water Streets. I heard that a policeman had 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 105 

been found in a dark hallway with his head stuck into a 
barrel, smothered to death. And for a time I could 
think about nothing else. 

One Friday afternoon, soon after election, I finished 
my washing and cleaning early and I went out into 
the street. I was returning about five o'clock through 
Clinton Street when I saw a Jewish pedlar with a push 
cart standing on the corner of Monroe Street and look- 
ing about helplessly. I saw him watching me as I came 
up. When I was near he asked, "Are you Jewish?" I 
nodded my head and stopped. I saw that his push cart 
held fish, mixed with chunks of ice. "You can do me a 
favour," he said in a pleading tone. "You see this hand- 
ful of fish? This is all my profit. If I could get over to 
that group of Jewish houses on Cherry Street," he 
pointed to our tenements, "I could still sell it though it is 
late. But I dare not pass those loafers hanging around 
the saloons." "But, what can I do?" I asked. "You can 
do much," he said with a smile. "They have great re- 
spect for a lady in America." 

"But " I began. "That is all right," he said with a 

wave of the hand. "You look like a lady. And if you 
will just walk beside me while I am passing the loafers, 
they won't touch me." I remembered now often having 
seen Jewish men escorted past dangerous places. And 
the women would as often be Irish. 

I stepped into the gutter, and for greater safety laid 
my hand on the push cart and walked along beside him. 
When we were passing the saloon the "loafers" made 
grimaces and shouted after him, but did not touch him. 
We stopped at our group of houses. He thanked me 
and at once became business-like. He shook up the ice 
in the push cart and then placing his hand at one corner 
of his mouth, American fashion, and looking up at the 



io6 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

windows he shouted lustily: "Hurry, hurry, women! 
Fresh pike here, fresh pike for the Sabbath." 

I found that father was already at home. As I came 
into the room I saw him sitting at the table before the 
little mirror resting against the wall, clipping his beard. 
I was so surprised and shocked to see him actually do 
this thing that I could neither speak nor move for some 
minutes. And I knew that he too felt embarrassed. 
After the first glance I kept my eyes steadily on the floor 
in front of me and began to talk to him quietly but with 
great earnestness. 

"You had been so pious at home, father," I said, 
"more pious than any one else in our whole neighbour- 
hood. And now you are cutting your beard. Grand- 
mother would never have believed it. How she would 
weep !" 

The snipping of the scissors still went on. But I 
knew by the sound that now he was only making a pre- 
tence at cutting. At last he laid it down and said in a 
tone that was bitter yet quiet : 

"They do not like Jews on Cherry Street. And one 
with a long beard has to take his life into his own hands." 

"But, father," I said, looking at him now, "must we 
live on Cherry Street?" 

"Yes, we must," he said, turning to me quickly and 
speaking in a more passionate tone. "They want the 
Jews to come and settle here. And because it is so hard 
to live here they have lowered the rents. I save here at 
least two dollars a month. You don't understand. For 
mother's journey we need not only tickets and money 
for other expenses, but we also need money for at least 
second-hand furniture. This is not like home. There 
the house was our own. And for the lot and garden we 
paid one dollar a year. There, too, we were among 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 107 

friends and relatives. While here, if we haven't rent for 
one month we are thrown out on the street. Do you 
understand ?" 

I said I understood. 



108 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XXVII 

Father began to strain all his energy to save the 
money to send for mother and the children. In the shop 
one morning I realised that he had been leaving out of his 
breakfast the tiny glass of brandy for two cents and was 
eating just the roll. So I too made my sacrifice. When 
as usual he gave me the apple and the roll, I took the 
roll but refused the apple. And he did not urge me. 
When a cold grey day at the end of November found 
him in his light tan suit quite worn and me in my thin 
calico frock, now washed out to a tan colour, we went 
to a second-hand clothing store on Division Street and 
he bought me a fuzzy brown coat reaching a little below 
my waist, for fifty cents, and for himself a thin thread- 
bare overcoat. And now we were ready for the winter. 

About the same time that the bitter cold came father 
told me one night that he had found work for me in a 
shop where he knew the presser. I lay awake long that 
night. I was eager to begin life on my own responsibility 
but was also afraid. We rose earlier than usual that 
morning for father had to take me to the shop and not 
be over late for his own work. I wrapped my thimble 
and scissors, with a piece of bread for breakfast, in a 
bit of newspaper, carefully stuck two needles into the 
lapel of my coat and we started. 

The shop was on Pelem Street, a shop district one 
block long and just wide enough for two ordinary sized 
wagons to pass each other. We stopped at a door where 
I noticed at once a brown shining porcelain knob and 
a half rubbed off number seven. Father looked at his 
watch and at me. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 109 

"Don't look so frightened/' he said. "You need not go 
in until seven. Perhaps if you start in at this hour he 
will think you have been in the habit of beginning at 
seven and will not expect you to come in earlier. Re- 
member, be independent. At seven o'clock rise and go 
home no matter whether the others go or stay." 

He began to tell me something else but broke off sud- 
denly, said "good-bye" over his shoulder and went away 
quickly. I watched him until he turned into Monroe 
Street. 

Now only I felt frightened, and waiting made me 
nervous, so I tried the knob. The door yielded heavily 
and closed slowly. I was half way up when it closed 
entirely, leaving me in darkness. I groped my way to 
the top of the stairs and hearing a clattering noise of ma- 
chines, I felt about, found a door, and pushed it open and 
went in. A tall, dark, beardless man stood folding coats 
at a table. I went over and asked him for the name (I 
don't remember what it was). "Yes," he said crossly. 
"What do you want?" 

I said, "I am the new feller hand." He looked at me 
from head to foot. My face felt so burning hot that I 
could scarcely see. 

"It is more likely," he said, "that you can pull bast- 
ings than fell sleeve lining." Then turning from me he 
shouted over the noise of the machine : "Presser, is this 
the girl ?" The presser put down the iron and looked at 
me. "I suppose so," he said, "I only know the father." 

The cross man looked at me again and said, "Let's 
see what you can do." He kicked a chair, from which 
the back had been broken off, to the finisher's table, threw 
a coat upon it and said raising the corner of his mouth : 
"Make room for the new feller hand." 

One girl tittered, two men glanced at me over their 



no OUT OF THE SHADOW 

shoulders and pushed their chairs apart a little. By this 
time I scarcely knew what I was about. I laid my coat 
down somewhere and pushed my bread into the sleeve. 
Then I stumbled into the bit of space made for me at 
the table, drew in the char and sat down. The men 
were so close to me on each side I felt the heat of their 
bodies and could not prevent myself from shrinking 
away. The men noticed and probably felt hurt. One 
made a joke, the other laughed and the girls bent their 
heads low over their work. All at once the thought 
came: "If I don't do this coat quickly and well he will 
send me away at once." I picked up the coat, threaded 
my needle, and began hastily, repeating the lesson father 
impressed upon me. "Be careful not to twist the sleeve 
lining, take small false stitches." 

My hands trembled so that I could not hold the needle 
properly. It took me a long while to do the coat. But 
at last it was done. I took it over to the boss and stood 
at the table waiting while he was examining it. He took 
long, trying every stitch with his needle. Finally he put 
it down and without looking at me gave me two other 
coats. I felt very happy ! When I sat down at the table 
I drew my knees close together and stitched as quickly as 
I could. 

When the pedlar came into the shop everybody 
bought rolls. I felt hungry but I was ashamed and would 
not eat the plain, heavy rye bread while the others ate 
rolls. 

All day I took my finished work and laid it on the 
boss's table. He would glance at the clock and give me 
other work. Before the day was over I knew that this 
was a "piece work shop," that there were four machines 
and sixteen people were working. I also knew that I 
had done almost as much work as "the grown-up girls" 



OUT OF THE SHADOW in 

and that they did not like me. I heard Betsy, the head 
feller hand, talking about "a snip of a girl coming and 
taking the very bread out of your mouth/' The only one 
who could have been my friend was the presser who 
knew my father. But him I did not like. The worst I 
knew about him just now was that he was a soldier be- 
cause the men called him so. But a soldier, I had 
learned, was capable of anything. And so, noticing that 
he looked at me often, I studiously kept my eyes from his 
corner of the room. 

Seven o'clock came and every one worked on. I 
wanted to rise as father had told me to do and go home. 
But I had not the courage to stand up alone. I kept put- 
ting off going from minute to minute. My neck felt 
stiff and my back ached. I wished there were a back 
to my chair so that I could rest against it a little. When 
the people began to go home it seemed to me that it had 
been night a long time. 



112 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XXVIII 

The next morning when I came into the shop at seven 
o'clock, I saw at once that all the people were there and 
working as steadily as if they had been at work a long 
while. I had just time to put away my coat and go over 
to the table, when the boss shouted gruffly, "Look here, 
girl, if you want to work here you better come in early. 
No office hours in my shop." It seemed very still in the 
room, even the machines stopped. And his voice sounded 
dreadfully distinct. I hastened into the bit of space be- 
tween the two men and sat down. He brought me two 
coats and snapped, "Hurry with these!" 

From this hour a hard life began for me. He refused 
to employ me except by the week. He paid me three 
dollars and for this he hurried me from early until late. 
He gave me only two coats at a time to do. When I 
took them over and as he handed me the new work he 
would say quickly and sharply, "Hurry !" And when he 
did not say it in words he looked at me and I seemed to 
hear even more plainly, "Hurry !" I hurried but he was 
never satisfied. By looks and manner he made me feel 
that I was not doing enough. Late at night when the 
people would stand up and begin to fold their work 
away and I too would rise feeling stiff in every limb 
and thinking with dread of our cold empty little room 
and the uncooked rice, he would come over with still 
another coat. 

"I need it the first thing in the morning," he would 
give as an excuse. I understood that he was taking ad- 
vantage of me because I was a child. And now that it 
was dark in the shop except for the low single gas jet 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 113 

over my table and the one over his at the other end of 
the room, and there was no one to see, more tears fell 
on the sleeve lining as I bent over it than there were 
stitches in it. 

I did not soon complain to father. I had given him 
an idea of the people and the work during the first days. 
But when I had been in the shop a few weeks I told him, 
"The boss is hurrying the life out of me." I know now 
that if I had put it less strongly he would have paid more 
attention to it. Father hated to hear things put strongly. 
Besides he himself worked very hard. He never came 
home before eleven and he left at five in the morning. 

He said to me now, "Work a little longer until you 
have more experience; then you can be independent.' ' 

"But if I did piece work, father, I would not have to 
hurry so. And I could go home earlier when the other 
people go." 

Father explained further, "It pays him better to em- 
ploy you by the week. Don't you see if you did piece 
work he would have to pay you as much as he pays 
a woman piece worker? But this way he gets almost as 
much work out of you for half the amount a woman is 
paid." 

I myself did not want to leave the shop for fear of 
losing a day or even more perhaps in finding other work. 
To lose half a dollar meant that it would take so much 
longer before mother and the children would come. And 
now I wanted them more than ever before. I longed 
for my mother and a home where it would be light and 
warm and she would be waiting when we came from 
work. Because I longed for them so I lived much in 
imagination. For so I could have them near me. Often 
as the hour for going home drew near I would sit stitch- 
ing and making believe that mother and the children were 



ii4 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

home waiting. On leaving the shop I would hasten along 
through the street keeping my eyes on the ground so as 
to shut out everything but what I wanted to see. I pic- 
tured myself walking into the house. There was a deli- 
cious warm smell of cooked food. Mother greeted me 
near the door and the children gathered about me shout- 
ing and trying to pull me down. Mother scolded them 
saying, "Let her take her coat off, see how cold her 
hands are!" But they paid no attention and pulled 
me down to them. Their little arms were about my neck, 
their warm faces against my cold cheeks and we went 
tumbling all over each other. Soon mother called, "Sup- 
per is ready." There was a scampering and a rush to the 
table, followed by a scraping of chairs and a clattering 
of dishes. Finally we were all seated. There was browned 
meat and potatoes for supper. 

I used to keep this up until I turned the key in the door 
and opened it and stood facing the dark, cold, silent 
room. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 115 



XXIX 

In proportion as life in the shop became harder, it 
also became harder at home. I had to do the washing 
and cleaning at night now. One night a week I cleaned 
and one I washed. I used to hang my dress on a string 
over Mrs. Felesberg's stove to dry over night. In the 
morning I pulled it straight and put it right on. The rest 
of the night I slept. During these days I could not seem 
to get enough sleep. Sometimes when I remembered 
how a few months before mother had to chase me to bed 
with cries and with scoldings it hardly seemed true. 
That time seemed so far away, so vague, like a dream. 

Now on coming into the room I would light the lamp 
and the kerosene oil stove and put on the soup to cook. 
Then I would sit down with my knees close to the soap 
box on which the stove stood, to keep myself warm. But 
before long my body relaxed, my head grew heavy with 
the odour of the burning oil and I longed to lie down. I 
knew that it was bad to go to sleep without supper. Two 
or three times father woke me. But it was no use, I 
could not eat then. And so I tried hard to keep awake. 
But finally I could not resist it. The cot was so near, 
just a step away. I could touch it with my hand. I 
would rise a little from the chair and all bent over as I 
was, I would tumble right in and roll myself in the red 
comforter, clothes and all. It was on these nights that 
I began to forget to pray. 

But it was only during the first part of the night that I 
slept heavily. After that I was half asleep, half awake. 
I was in constant fear of being late to work. Often in 
the middle of the night I would wake up with a start, 



ii6 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

tumble out of bed, scarcely conscious of what I was 
about, and run to the clock which we put on the table 
for the night. There I stood peering at it unseeingly 
for a long while. Gradually I would realise where I 
was, what I was about and that I must see the time. 
And only now I could see the hands of the clock dis- 
tinctly, both on the twelve perhaps. How happy I felt 
when it was still so early. With what a feeling of joy 
and relief I lay back on the pillow and closed my eyes. 
But if I happened to wake near five I would not close 
them again for fear of oversleeping. That was about 
the time that father left. 

One morning when I started up into a half sitting po- 
sition I saw at once that the light in the lamp was turned 
up a little and on the table lay the larger part of the loaf 
of bread. And so I knew that father had gone. I peered 
at the clock and it seemed to me that it was a quarter to 
seven, very late. With my eyes half shut I slid out of 
bed hastily and began to dress, seeing all the while the 
boss's eyes glaring at me threateningly. It did not take me 
long to put on my frock, and the coat I always put on 
as soon as I had the dress on because it was so bitter 
cold in the room. I buttoned every other button on my 
shoes, and just smoothed my hair back, leaving the 
tangles for Saturday. I broke off a hunk of bread, 
snatched a piece of newspaper and blew out the light. 
As I felt my way to the door and through the dark hall it 
struck me how quiet it was at the Felesbergs and the little 
old woman's and all through the house. At other times 
when I started the whole building was full of life. Now 
as I was passing I just heard a door open and close 
softly, and a slight noiseless movement here and there. 
In my hurry I did not stop to think about it but hastened 
on. I drew the street door open. The next moment a 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 117 

fierce gust of wind tore it from my hand and closed it 
with a bang. I had seen that a heavy snow had fallen 
over night. I stood for a moment shivering with cold 
and fear. Then I wound my braid around my neck under 
the collar, and pulling the hair over my ears a little, I 
drew the door open again and stepped out quickly. There 
were no steps. It all looked flat and white. The wind 
moaned and whistled and here and there a huddled dark 
form hurried along over the white. I tucked my bread 
under my arm, slipped, muff-wise, each bare hand into 
the opposite sleeve and started to run. I seemed to be 
running very fast and yet I saw that I was making little 
headway. The wind was fearful. It struck against my 
chest constantly. At one moment it wound my calico 
skirt about my knees and I could not take a step. The 
next it blew it way up in the air and I had to put it 
down with my hands. I stopped and took some minutes 
to unbutton my coat with my stiffened fingers and to 
fold the fronts tightly over each other on my chest. The 
cold lay on it like an iron weight and I could not breathe. 
Then I bent my head before the wind and ran on. Soon 
I was exhausted. "Where am I ?" I wondered. I stopped 
and looked about. It looked so unfamiliar with all the 
white under foot and the rows of houses on each side of 
me standing so still. They looked like stone walls. "It 
is like a prison," I thought. Suddenly it seemed to me 
that I was in prison and the dark forms were pursuing 
me and I ran in terror. I turned this way and that way, 
not knowing nor heeding now where I was going. My 
skirt flapped and the wind blew the snow into my face 
blinding me as I ran. I tried to run clear of the walls 
but I saw that they were on each side of me enclosing 
me whichever way I turned. I finally came into a space 
where I felt the walls rose higher than ever and the space 



u8 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

between grew narrow. There was something familiar 
to me in that, though I dared not look about. I ran to a 
door, stopped and clung to it and pressed my face against 
it. My eyes closed. My numb fingers groped until 
they found and closed over something which they recog- 
nised at once. 

Instinctively I had run to the shop. And now I stood 
before the door holding on to the brown porcelain knob. 
I was never so happy before to see the shop door. I 
leaned against the door and looked at the dark windows 
of the shops opposite and realised gradually that I had 
left home too early. "The shop must be closed," I 
thought. "I must wait here until it opens." I pressed into 
the corner of the door. The wind kept flapping and 
fluttering my dress and sweeping the snow back 
and forth before me. Soon I felt my knees bending of 
their own accord and so I sat down. I saw my bread 
slip from under my arm. It made me feel a little uneasy 
to see it lying there on the snow. And so I watched 
it for a moment. I put out my hand to tuck my dress 
about me and I felt my head lean back against the door. 
I was beginning to feel very comfortable. I seemed to 
be sitting on something soft and I no longer felt the cold. 
The wind was growing quieter, and quieter, and the 
street lights shone so faintly. 

I felt a slight pressure on my arm, then it became 
heavier. And soon I felt myself being shaken quite 
roughly and a familiar voice saying, "For God's sake, 
girl, what are you doing here?" 

It was the presser from our shop. He helped me up 
and asked me again what I was doing there. I wanted 
to explain but could not move my tongue. So I just 
looked at him. 

"Come quickly into the shop," he said. He caught 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 119 

hold of my arm, pushed the door open and pulled me 
along with him. Even now I remembered that he was 
a soldier and tried to draw back. But I doubt whether 
he even felt my resistance. He drew me along into the 
hall and up the dark narrow stairs. He unlocked the 
door, propped me up against a wall and said, "Now 
stand here until I light the gas." When there was a light 
he put me on a chair near the fireplace, covered me up 
with coats and then began hurriedly to shovel the ashes 
out of the grate into a pail. I kept my teeth closed tightly 
and sat watching his every movement. He soon had a 
crackling fire. He lifted my chair close to it and made 
me hold my hands out. I saw him empty one little 
bundle of wood after another into the grate. "I won't 
put any coal on until you are quite warm," he said; "it 
would take too long to burn up." Then he mumbled 
to himself, "When he sees how much wood I used this 
morning he will hang himself and I'll never hear the end 
of it." 

When my tongue had thawed a little I told him how 
I happened to be out so early. Then he asked me 
whether I had anything to eat. I remembered that I had 
dropped my bread near the door on the snow and told 
him so. He went out and found it. "Good!" he said, 
"you have bread and I have some slices of smoked sal- 
mon." He took it out of his overcoat pocket, wrapped in 
a paper, drew a chair close to the fire, sat down and held 
it out to me. 

I said, "I don't care for any." He looked offended. 
"If you won't accept anything," he said, "it means that 
you would not give anything of yours either." To show 
him that it was not so, I began at once to break my bread 
in half. But my fingers were still too numb so I gave it 



120 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

to him. "Good!" he said again, "you will take half of 
my salmon and I'll take half of your bread." 

He cut the bread with his penknife which he never 
for a moment let go out of his hand. 

"It is from home," meaning from Russia, he said, 
flashing the blades before me. 

While we sat eating and holding our hands to the 
fire he told me about himself. He said that he had 
escaped from the Russian army a year before and that 
his wife and two year old little girl were still in Russia. 
He was trying to save and send for them. As I watched 
his face while he was talking I wondered that I ever 
disliked him. I thought now that he had a very kind 
face and if it were not for his long moustache which he 
often twirled, he would have been good looking. 

I also told him about father and myself and mother 
and the children in Russia. I told him that we hoped to 
send for them in the spring. "That is why I am work- 
ing so hard," I said, looking at him earnestly. He looked 
at me too and his eyes seemed to be laughing at me. But 
he said seriously, "Yes, you have to sweat for your 
slice of bread." He rose and stood for a moment looking 
at the door and listening. "There he comes, the Vam- 
pire," he said. "I hear his footsteps in the hall." 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 121 



XXX 

That morning I could not get warm in the shop. The 
boss gave me three coats to do instead of two, by mis- 
take I thought. I spread two on my lap and the third 
I hugged close to my chest as I worked on it. I should 
have also liked to keep my own coat on. But I was 
afraid that if he knew how cold I was he would 
think I could not do as much work and would send me 
home and make me lose half a day's pay. Chills were 
running up and down my back and I could scarcely bend 
my fingers to hold the needle and I pricked my thumb. 
My fingers were so numb that I did not feel it. Indeed 
I did not know it until I saw a tiny red stain on the white 
sleeve lining. I looked and looked at it, and could not 
at once believe my eyes and my heart pounded with 
fear. I wondered : "Shall I take it to the boss at once ? 
He will make me pay for it. How much is a sleeve 
lining? Fifty cents, perhaps even a dollar." I deter- 
mined not to show it to him at once. I finished it, folded 
it and laid it on the floor under my chair. 

When I finished the other two coats I took them over 
to the boss. I felt sick at the very thought that he might 
ask me for the third one. But he did not. He looked 
at me crossly and wanted to know whether I was sleep- 
ing over my work. 

All morning I sat thinking about the blood stain and 
wondering what the price of a sleeve lining was. Finally 
I could not stand it. I had to know. I bent over the 
table toward Betsy and asked how much a sleeve lining 
is. "Why?" she wanted to know. "I am just wonder- 



122 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

ing," I said. She looked at me sharply. "Have you 
damaged one?" she asked. 

My face began to burn. I bent my head low over my 
work and did not answer. 

For the noon meal all went out except the presser and 
Betsy. I pulled the coat out from under my chair and 
looked at it. I was so miserable that I could not help 
crying. Betsy looked at me in surprise and the presser 
came over. I showed them the stain. The presser 
thought he could take it out with benzine. He took it 
over to his table and there he rubbed and rubbed it with 
a tiny cloth, and held it away from him, and looked at 
it from all sides. Finally he became impatient. "An un- 
usual thing a stain on a coat," he said, and flung it into 
the pile on the boss's table. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 123 



XXXI 

One day I noticed that there was a good deal of whis- 
pering among the men in the shop. At noon when all 
went out to lunch and I ran out to get a slice of cheese 
for mine, I saw that the men had gathered on the street 
before the door. They were eating sandwiches, stamp- 
ing about over the snow and disputing in anxious ear- 
nest whispers. 

In the shop the boss looked gloomier than ever. 

"I'll not have any one coming into my shop and tell- 
ing me what to do," he shouted to a strange man who 
came over to his table to talk to him. "This shop is mine. 
The machines are mine. If they are willing to work on 
my conditions, well and good, if not, let them go to the 
devil! All the tailors are not dead yet." 

At our table Betsy whispered : "The men joined the 
union. The boss is in a hurry for the work." There was 
a twinkle in Betsy's usually lifeless eyes. 

I had no idea what a union meant or what all this 
trouble was about. But I learned a little the next day. 
When I came in a little after six in the morning, I found 
only the three girls who were at my table. Not a man 
except the boss was in the shop. The men came in about 
five minutes to seven and then stood or sat at the presser's 
table talking and joking quietly. The boss stood at his 
table brushing coats furiously. Every minute or so he 
glanced at the clock and his face looked black with 
anger. 

At the first stroke of seven the presser blew a whistle 
and every man went to his place. At the minute of twelve 
the presser again blew the whistle and the men went out 



124 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

to their noon meal. Those who remained in the shop ate 
without hurry and read their newspapers. The boss 
kept his eye on us girls. We began last, ate hurriedly 
and sat down to work at once. Betsy looked at the men 
reading their newspapers and grumbled in a whisper, 
"This is what it means to belong to a union. You get 
time to straighten out your bones." I knew that Betsy 
had been a feller hand for many years. Her back was 
quite bent over and her hands were white and flabby. 

The men returned a little before one and sat waiting 
for the stroke of the clock and the presser's whistle. At 
seven in the evening when the presser blew his whistle 
the men rose almost with one movement, put away their 
work and turned out the lights over their tables and 
machines. We girls watched them go enviously and 
the boss turned his back towards the door. He did not 
answer their "Good-night." In the dark and quiet that 
followed his great shears clipped loudly and angrily. 

One Saturday afternoon father came home and 
showed me a little book with a red paper cover which he 
took from his breast pocket. "This," he said, "is my 
union book. You too must join the union." He told 
me he had heard that a few of the feller hands had or- 
ganized, and a mass meeting was to be held in a hall on 
Clinton Street that evening. He took me to the door of 
the building at eight o'clock, saw a young woman enter 
and told me to follow her. As I had no idea what a 
meeting was like or what to expect I was dazed and 
dazzled by the great number of lights, the red carpet 
covering the floor, and the crowd of people already seated 
on benches along the walls. The middle of the room was 
not used. 

I glanced about from the doorway for a seat nearby. 
But the only ones I could see were in front. And for 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 125 

this I finally aimed, looking neither to right nor to left 
and feeling painfully conscious of my shabbiness. The 
seat I was forced to take was right in front and only 
about two yards away from the small square platform. 
I was so uneasy at being exposed from all sides that it 
was some time before I forgot my bare head, my red 
hands with the cracked and bleeding skin and my shoes 
with their turned up noses — already worn out and still 
too large for me. By that time a young man was stand- 
ing on the. platform speaking. I had seen this young 
man two or three times before. He lived on Cherry 
Street a few doors away from us, and Kate Felesberg 
had told me once that he was a "student." What he was 
saying now was something like this : 

"Fourteen hours a day you sit on a chair, often with- 
out a back, felling coats. Fourteen hours you sit close 
to the other feller hand feeling the heat of her body 
against yours, her breath on your face. Fourteen hours 
with your back bent, your eyes close to your work you 
sit stitching in a dull room often by gas light. In the 
winter during all these hours as you sit stitching your 
body is numb with cold. In the summer, as far as you are 
concerned, there might be no sun, no green grass, no 
soft breezes. You with your eyes close to the coat on 
your lap are sitting and sweating the livelong day. The 
black cloth dust eats into your very pores. You are 
breathing the air that all the other bent and sweating 
bodies in the shop are throwing off, and the air that 
comes in from the yard heavy and disgusting with filth 
and the odour of the open toilets. 

"If any of you know this, and think about it, you say 
to yourselves, no doubt, What is the use of making a 
fuss? Will the boss pay any attention to me if I should 
talk to him ? And anyway it won't be for long. I won't 



126 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

stay in the shop all my life. I'll — perhaps this year, or 

next .' Girls, I know your thought. You expect to 

get married ! Not so quick ! Even the man who works 
in a shop himself does not want to marry a white-faced 
dull-eyed girl who for years has been working fourteen 
hours a day. He realises that you left your strength in 
the shop, and that to marry you he would take on a 
bundle of troubles, and doctor's bills on his head. You 
know what he does most often ? He sends to Russia for 
a girl he once knew, one who has never seen the inside 
of a shop. Or else he marries the little servant girl with 
the red cheeks and bright eyes. 

"And even if you do marry, are you so secure? Don't 
forget that your husband himself is working in the shop 
fourteen hours and more a day, breathing the filthy air 
and the cloth dust. How long will he last? Who knows ! 
You may have to go back to the shop. And even worse 
than this may be awaiting you. Your children may have 
to go to the shop ! And unless you, now, change it, they 
may have to go back to the same dull shops, the filthy 
air and the fourteen hours. In the winter before day- 
light your little daughter may have to run through the 
streets in the rain and the snow in her worn little shoes, 
and thin coat. She will stand trembling before the boss 
in the same dull shop, perhaps, where you had once stood. 
She will sit in the same backless chair, rickety now, with 
her little back bent, for fourteen hours." 

He seemed to be looking right at me. I tucked my feet 
far under my seat and bent my head to hide my tears. 
"Who is this man ?" I wondered ; "how does he know all 
this?" 

He continued : "Each one of you alone can do noth- 
ing. Organise! Demand decent wages that you may 
be able to live in a way fit for human beings, not for 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 127 

swine. See that your shop has pure air and sun, that 
your bodies may be healthy. Demand, reasonable hours 
that you may have time to know your families, to think, 
to enjoy. Organise ! Each one of you alone can do noth- 
ing. Together you can gain everything." 

For a moment the room was perfectly still. Then 
there was a storm of applause and the people rose and 
began to press close to the platform. I went to a vacant 
seat in an out-of-the-way corner and watched the people 
going out in groups and talking excitedly. When the 
hall was almost empty I went over to the secretary's 
desk. "I want to join the union," I said. 

Our feller hands had not been at the meeting but they 
too had joined the union. And now our shop was a 
"strictly union shop." I'll always remember how proud 
I felt when the first evening at seven o'clock the presser 
blew the whistle and I with the other girls stood up with 
the men. But not many girls joined the union. And so, 
it was soon broken up. During these weeks I began to 
go to night school. I went to the class right from the 
shop without supper, for the doors of the school closed 
at half past seven. When I came into the class, the 
lights, the warmth to which I was not used, and the 
girls reading in a slow monotonous tone, one after anoth- 
er, would soon put me to sleep. Before I dropped off 
the first night I learned one word, "Sometimes." It was 
the longest word on the page and stood out among the 
rest. 

I left the shop soon after the union broke up. I don't 
remember why or how it happened. The boss of the 
next shop where father found work for me was kind. 
The first morning when I came in to work, seeing the 
girls put me at the end of the table where it was dark, 
he came over and made them let me sit near the window. 



128 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

"She is still a little girl," he said. "She must grow." 
And at night he told me that I need not stay after half 
past seven. He was kind to me in other ways too. I 
had an unfortunate habit of losing needles. It always 
seemed to me that I put my needle away quite carefully 
after I broke off the thread; but when I needed it again 
I could seldom find it. And as father never gave me 
more than one or two needles at a time I was often in 
great distress. One day when I lost my needle and was 
looking about on the floor, on the table, and in my dress 
and feeling very miserable, he came over and asked me 
very seriously, "What's wrong?" I felt that the time I 
was wasting was his and I mumbled guiltily : "I lost my 
needle." Without a word he went over to the men, bor- 
rowed two needles at once and brought them to me. 
After this whenever he saw me looking about for my 
needle, he would take a whole packet out of his breast 
pocket and give me one or two, and say laughingly, 
"Here, Ruth, is a needle, and don't look so unhappy." As 
he was not a tailor I knew that he kept the packet of 
needles to have them to give to me. 

I felt happy in this shop. The men sat at a separate 
table and I never heard an unkind or obscene word. 
Every night I had something to tell father about the 
boss's kindness. Father was glad that I was so fortunate 
and often told me, "Try your best to keep this place." 
And I did. I worked as quickly and as well as I could. 

One Friday when the boss was paying his workers he 
said to me, "Ruth, I am short of money. Do you mind 
coming over to my home to-morrow morning at ten 
o'clock for yours?" I said I did not mind. Indeed I 
was glad I could do something for him though it was so 
little. 

Since I had been working in this shop and was not 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 129 

so hard driven and humiliated, I blossomed out again. 
My hair was always well combed out and on Saturdays 
I wore it loose. Now too I was wearing new shoes. And 
I had a new navy blue cashmere dress, the first dress 
I had ever had, that was not home-made and too large 
for me, and it cost me a week's wages and many tears. 
But it was worth it. It was so pretty and gave me a 
great deal of joy. With this dress even my yellowish 
brown coat did not look so bad. 

So dressed, and feeling very cheerful, I started out 
the next morning a little before ten. I ran and skipped 
over the snow, and clapped my hands together often to 
keep warm. I found my boss in a room I thought gor- 
geous with its carpeted floor and upholstered chairs. He 
was alone. I saw and felt at once that there was not the 
calm and quietness about him to which I was accustomed. 
He greeted me in the middle of the room, touched my 
hair with his fingers, and then went and sat down. I 
remained standing. "You look very holiday like," he 
said. I thought he too looked "holiday like." He was 
wearing a new blue suit, his brown hair lay smoother 
than ever and his dark reddish moustache was curled. 
After a moment or so he said quite abruptly, "Come, 
Ruth, sit down here." He motioned to his knee. I felt 
my face flush. I backed away towards the door and 
stood staring at him. He too sat quite still looking at 
me. Then he rose and with his usual slowness and quiet- 
ness put his hand into his pocket, took out a roll of bills, 
counted off three dollars, and brought it over to me at the 
door. "Tell your father," he said, "to find you a new 
shop for to-morrow morning." 

I walked home weeping bitterly. I did not know what 
I should tell my father. 

In my next shop there was only a single set. The 



130 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

boss himself was the machine operator and of course 
there was the baster, a finisher and a presser and I was 
the feller hand. And at the end of the week the boss 
would leave his machine and run out to Hester, corner 
Orchard Street, the tailors' "hangout," and bring a man 
for a couple of days to put the finishing touches on the 
coats before they went out to the warehouse. Shops of 
this kind were called "One horse wagons." 

This boss was also single. He was an ill-natured 
young man. He was tall and so thin that he looked all 
dried up. He did not trust any one, any further than he 
could see. Instead of having his machine face the win- 
dow, like other operators, he sat with his back to it and 
faced the room so that he could see every one of us. Me 
he kept at his machine, making me use a corner of it, as 
my table, so that he could have me constantly under his 
eye. He scolded and teased and swore from morning 
until night. He told us every day in the week that we 
were not earning our money, that we were botchers, that 
we had nothing to worry us, while his hair was turning 
grey, that every year he was losing a hundred dollars 
while we risked nothing and lost nothing. We were only 
getting money which we were not earning. His voice 
as he talked sounded through the shop like the drone of 
a bee — except that it was full of poison. Bits of white 
foam would soon gather in the corners of his thin mouth. 
And I used to imagine that the blood in his veins boiled 
and bubbled as water boils and bubbles in a kettle over 
a fire. 

He employed only the cheapest kind of labor and so 
he was in constant trouble in the warehouse. He never 
sent a lot of coats without receiving some back to fix. 
He always made me do the fixing, as my time was the 
least valuable. He would stand at the back of my chair 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 131 

and while showing me what to do he would pour out all 
his wrath on me. On these nights when I rose to go 
home I could not straighten my back. And though it 
was often bitter cold when I came out on the street I 
walked home slowly, keeping near the wall. 

One day, instead of bringing the work home to be 
fixed the boss took me along to the warehouse and made 
me do it there. When I told father about it in the even- 
ing he got the idea that I was a very valuable hand and 
told me to ask for a raise on Friday. All week I could 
not get the thought out of my mind, that I must ask for 
a raise. When Friday came and it was time to go home 
I kept putting off talking to the boss until all the other 
workers were gone and I was alone. At last I put on my 
coat and went and stood at his machine. 

"What do you want?" he snapped. I could not get 
the words out of my mouth at once. At last I said 
weakly, "I want a raise." 

He dropped the work on his machine and sat staring 
at me. The light of the gas jet over his machine fell 
full on his skeleton-like face. The expression of hatred 
in it frightened me, but I stood still. Finally he said be- 
tween his teeth, "Say it again. Let me hear you say 
it again and I'll throw you down the four flights of 
stairs." 

I went to the door and said, "I want my pay." 

He bent his head over his work and said, "I haven't 
any now. You will get it Sunday morning when you 
come to work." 

When I told it to father he said, "When you get your 
pay Sunday you won't go there again." 

Sunday morning when I came to the shop I found all 
our men gathered on the street before the door. The 
presser looked at me. "I am afraid, little girl," he said, 



132 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

"you are going to have a rest now. The shop is closed 
and the boss is nowhere to be seen. We have just sent 
a man to his home. ,, Soon the man came back and said 
that the boss had not been seen in his boarding place 
since Friday night. The presser looked at each one of 
us, one after the other, "How long does it take to go to 
Canada? Twenty-four hours? Well, then, he is prob- 
ably there now." The baster collapsed on the doorstep. 
He was a grey little old man. He had been sick and this 
week's wages were the first he had earned in a long 
while. 

I stood a while, then I walked away from the shop. 

"Where next," I wondered. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 133 



XXXII 

And now I came into Mr. Cohen's shop. I had to 
work here as hard as in any of the other places. But of 
this shop I think with pleasure, because here every one, 
from Mr. Cohen to the little boy in knee pants who 
came after school hours to pull basting, was good and 
kind. Here too there was just a single set. Mr. Cohen 
himself was the baster. All day he sat on his big table 
with his legs crossed and worked very hard to save the 
wages he would have had to pay a baster, and do his own 
part of the work too. The machine operator was his 
partner. He was a small shy young man with a very 
pink face, small black moustache and eyes. When he 
was angry no one ever paid any attention to him because 
he wasn't really angry. He could not be. His name 
was Fine, and Gussie, the feller hand, used to say that he 
was as fine as his name. 

One day Mr. Cohen was showing me how to make the 
little bars in the corners of the coat pockets. Finding 
that I learned it very quickly, he conceived the idea of 
teaching me other parts of the trade so that I could help 
out all the "big" people. And so I helped Gussie, who 
sat right opposite me at the narrow bench-like table, with 
the felling, and she taught me how to cross-stitch labels. 
I helped the finisher who sat next to me. This was the 
part of the work that father had taught me. And Mr. 
Cohen taught me how to sew on buttons, which was con- 
sidered an art in itself. For a properly sewed-on button 
on a coat has to stand up high and stiff and straight as 
though on a leg. Mr. Cohen showed frankly that I was 
a valuable hand and that he was pleased with me and 



i 3 4 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

paid me three and a half dollars instead of three which 
I had been getting. 

And so now again I lifted my head a little. My work 
was more interesting because it had variety. I liked 
variety, and I liked the people, all except the presser. 
He was the only one in the shop that used vulgar and 
obscene language. 

In this shop when the time to go home came it used 
to please me to stay a few minutes longer. It was al- 
ways Mr. Cohen's partner who reminded me that it was 
time to go home. He nearly always said the same thing. 
"Ruth, you look so busy! Aren't you going home to- 
night?" I liked to hear him say it. I liked to feel that 
some one was concerned about me. I used to sit and 
wait for it. 

Sunday morning no one worked very steadily. The 
men used to talk over the amusements of the day before. 
I used to hear them talk about Shakespeare's plays, the 
Jewish theatre, Jacob Adler in the Jewish King Lear. 
I listened to them and wondered, "Who is Shakespeare ? 
What are plays ? Who is Jacob Adler who makes such a 
wonderful King Lear?" 

About this time my own Saturdays became less dull 
than they had been. Aunt Masha left her place as nurse 
girl. In reality she had been a general house maid. She 
had had to cook, scrub and wash. She had had to eat in 
a windowless little kitchen at the wash tub and sleep 
on the floor. She said she was utterly tired of this kind 
of life and wanted to try the shop. Father soon found 
her one where the boss was willing to teach her how to 
fell coats on condition that she would work for three 
dollars a week for some time after. And so she moved 
into a tiny bedroom with two other girls and I saw her 
more often. On a Saturday morning now she would 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 135 

come, supervise the washing of my hair, and tell me quite 
often that I was as stubborn as ever. And in the after- 
noon she would take me along with her to visit her 
friends. Usually the young men and women gathered 
in some one's home and spent the whole afternoon sing- 
ing and dancing Russian dances. None of them paid any 
attention to me or thought of asking me to join them. 
I used to sit down in an out-of-the-way corner and 
watch them. When I learned the dance songs I used to 
sing for them, and soon they began to depend upon me. 
As I sang I watched them and longed to dance too. 

Among the young men there was one who was dis- 
tantly related to us. He had been ten years in this coun- 
try and he spoke English well. I thought he was nicer 
and more polite than any of the others. Often I sat 
imagining that I too was dancing — I was the tall dark- 
haired girl with whom this young man usually danced. 
Sometimes I wondered what I would do if he really 
came and asked me. One day it occurred to me that 
perhaps if I wished very hard he would come. And so I 
sat singing, and wishing, and watching. One day when 
I saw him stop before me and ask me to dance I was not 
at all surprised. It seemed quite natural. Hadn't I 
wished so hard ! I never knew how I went through that 
dance. When he led me back to my chair and I was 
seated he bowed with a slightly exaggerated politeness as 
one sometimes does to a child, and said in English, pro- 
nouncing each word slowly and distinctly so that I should 
understand, "You — dance — like — a — little — fairy." 

When Aunt Masha and I were alone I asked her, 
"What is a fairy?" She did not know. I asked many 
of our acquaintances but no one knew what a fairy was. 



136 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XXXIII 

So a year almost passed and spring came. 

At home in our village with the first warm days the 
birds would return to our neighbourhood and we could 
hear the "click, click" of the storks that came back to 
build in the old stump in the cemetery. In the air there 
was an agreeable smell of the moist earth warming in 
the sun. The earth seemed to swell and burst right under 
our feet so that we could almost feel the plant life push- 
ing its way to the light long before we could see it. 

Here with the first warm days I saw the children 
on the street appearing in lighter clothing with bright 
new tops and jumping ropes. They seemed more free. 
Their laughter rang merrily and they responded more 
reluctantly to their mothers' calls to "come up stairs!" 

I too longed to stay out. Many mornings as I hurried 
to work through the soft air and early sunshine a sick 
feeling would come over me at the thought of the shop, 
the dust-covered, nailed-up windows, the weight of the 
black heavy coats on my lap. In the winter I had been 
glad enough when the coats were big and heavy. They 
kept me warmer. But now the coat on my lap seemed 
to weigh a ton and kept slipping and slipping from my 
lap all day long as if it would drag me down. I could not 
make out what was wrong. I felt depressed and tired 
even when I got up in the morning. Often too I felt a 
little sick though nothing hurt. One day while standing 
at Mr. Cohen's table I bent down to pick up something. 
When I straightened again I felt the blood in my temples 
beat as though with hammers and everything on the table 
seemed topsey-turvey. I had to stand still with my eyes 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 137 

closed for some minutes before I could see things in their 
right position and places. 

The next morning when Mrs. Cohen brought her hus- 
band's coffee, as she did every morning, she sat down 
next to me at our little table to pull some bastings, which 
she always did when she came, and began to talk to me. 
She asked me some questions about my family and my- 
self. I told her I thought we would soon send for mother 
and the children and admitted that I had not been well 
for some time; when I climbed steps my heart beat so 
that it pained and I could not stoop down without grow- 
ing dizzy. 

Mrs. Cohen was a middle aged, kind woman, and so 
pious that not a hair of her own could be seen from 
under her light brown wig. She glanced at me now. 
"You do look pale," she said, and then advised me to go 
and see her doctor. I was scared. I had never been 
treated by a doctor in my life. At home the old women 
of the village knew a charm prayer for every ailment and 
grandmother would brew tea out of different blossoms 
which we gathered in the spring. 

In the evening I told father for the first time that I 
had not been feeling well and that Mrs. Cohen offered 
to take me to her doctor. Father took a good look at me 
for the first time in a long while and showed alarm. He 
told me by all means to go with Mrs. Cohen and gave 
me a half dollar for the doctor. 

A little before three o'clock the next day Mrs. Cohen 
and I were in the doctor's office. He was a big, blonde, 
clean-shaven Gentile man. He looked into my eyes and 
made me shake my hands downward to see if they would 
grow pink. I shook and shook my hands but they stayed 
almost white. The doctor smiled cheerfully. "We'll 
soon fix you up," he said ; "stay out in the air, and ." 



138 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

Mrs. Cohen explained that I worked in the shop and that 
my mother was not here. "Oh," he said, looking dis- 
pleased. He drew up and stuck out his lips, put his 
elbow on the desk, rested his chin in one hand and sat 
staring out of the window and drumming. He sat so 
long that I thought he had forgotten all about us. Finally 
he caught up his pen and quickly, as if to make up for 
lost time, wrote a prescription. "Here," he said, hand- 
ing it to me. "It will help some." I held out the half 
dollar. He looked at it on my palm for a moment, then 
took my hand in his great big one and put it down play- 
fully and said, "That is all right. But 'feed up/ " This 
was the first time I heard these two little words. But 
from now on I was to hear them often and for many 
years. 

I stayed out the rest of the afternoon. It seemed 
strange to be idle on a week day. I sauntered along 
through Grand Street toward the ferry, looking into the 
store windows. 

That night I sat up for father. He laid the large 
brown loaf on the table when he came and sat down 
on the chair alongside of it. I saw at once that he had 
something pleasant to tell. He was not smiling but his 
face looked all lit up. After hearing what the doctor had 
had to say and cautioning me to take the medicine regu- 
larly he began slowly, drawing out his words almost as 
grandmother had often done, and smiling now quite 
broadly, "You know, Rahel, I think with this week's 
wages we have enough money for the steamer tickets, 
the journey and a little over." 

He put his hand deep into his pocket, took out the 
long baggy purse and laid it on the table. Then he drew 
the white muslin curtain over the lower part of the win- 
dow, and told me to lift the lamp from the bracket to 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 139 

the table. He began to count and I breathlessly watched 
his fingers as they turned back the bills. 

"Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty,' 1 and so on he counted. 
Finally he said slowly, "Yes, we have enough." 

I could not realise that it was true, that we could send 
for them at once. Then the thought came, "In three 
months they might be here!" I laid my arms on the 
table, buried my face in them and began to sob. Father 
laid his hand gently on my head. For once he did not 
scold me for my tears. 



140 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XXXIV 

A little over two months later father and I stood 
in line before one of the windows in the main post office 
on Grand Street, waiting for mail. During these two 
and a half months we had sent the tickets and heard that 
they had been received and that mother was selling out 
everything but the pillows, the linens and the candlesticks. 
Then a letter had come saying that they had started. 
That night Aunt Masha cried bitterly. For then we knew 
that grandmother and grandfather were alone, separated 
even from each other in their old age. For where she 
went to stay they would not keep him, and where he 
stayed they would not keep her. 

Now we were waiting to hear whether mother and 
the children had crossed the boundary safely or had been 
caught and turned back as father had been the first time 
he started for America. We should have had a letter 
two days before. Father was very pale as he stood wait- 
ing his turn. At last he was at the window and the clerk 
handed him a post card. It was in sister's handwriting. 
She and I did all the corresponding. Neither father nor 
mother could write. 

"Read quickly," father said, giving me the card and 
bending over me. His voice trembled. I spelled out 
the words: "We crossed the boundary safely — and we 
are all well, thank God." 

"Thank God!" father repeated after me. Then he 
threw his head back and laughed joyously. "They will 
soon be here." 

One week later, early on Saturday, father, Aunt 
Masha and I went looking for rooms. All day we 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 141 

walked about, climbing many stairs. For of most rooms 
the rent was too high. At last we found a small three 
family rear house on Broome Street where the two rooms 
on the middle floor were empty. We reached the rear 
house by passing through the long hall of the front tene- 
ment, into a yard, and then climbing a high stoop. Both 
rooms had windows facing the yard and the rear win- 
dows of the front tenement. The water was in the yard 
and had to be pumped. But father saw many advantages 
and I too saw how I could turn the tiny hall where the 
upper tenant had to pass into a kitchen. So we rented 
them for seven dollars a month. 

One morning a few days later I was not well and 
father told me to stay home. (There were often days 
now when I was not well.) I thought this a golden op- 
portunity to clean "the new rooms." So I started quite 
early from Cherry Street for the house on Broome 
Street. I borrowed a pail and a scrubbing brush from 
our neighbour in the basement and went to work on the 
floors. They were unpainted and thick with dirt. I 
scrubbed and rinsed, changing the water often by carry- 
ing the pailfuls of dirty water into the yard and pump- 
ing up fresh water. At first it seemed impossible that 
I could get them clean but soon the grain of the wood 
began to show. When I was on the last little piece near 
the door I sat back on my heels and surveyed the clean 
wet boards with a feeling of pleasure. The clothes on 
my back felt damp, and drops of perspiration were roll- 
ing from my cheeks down my neck. I looked at my 
hands, the palms and fingers were water soaked and 
all crinkled up. I remembered mother saying that I 
had the hands of a lazy girl, and that I touched soiled 
things with my finger tips. "Oh!" I thought, "if she 
could only see them now !" And with a feeling of satis- 



H2 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

faction I dipped my hands into the pail of black, muddy 
water up to the elbows and sang a song made up on the 
spot. 

"Oh, how I'll scrub, — how white our floors will be." 

In the evening we parted from Mrs. Felesberg (not 
without tears) and moved into our new rooms. Then the 
furniture came. I spread newspapers over the floors, 
tucked up my dress into the belt and ran about showing 
the men where to put each piece. The large square table 
went into the centre of the big room and the six chairs 
all around it, the two folding cots were put at the further 
end in the same room, the big bed into the bedroom. 
And I placed our old kerosene oil stove on a new soap 
box in the little square hall, taking care to leave at least 
a foot of space for our neighbours upstairs to pass. I 
looked on this little corner as "the kitchen" and the large 
room as the "front room." I longed for a front room! 

When the men were gone father and I looked about 
our rooms and at each other, and we smiled happily. 

As the days passed and the time drew near for their 
coming, I became more and more impatient and nervous 
and found it more difficult than ever to sit in one place in 
the shop and think about the work. However, I did not 
always think about it. Often as I sat sewing on buttons 
or felling a sleeve lining I pictured them on the steamer 
and went over their whole journey in my mind, sure 
that it was very much as my own had been. First I saw 
them jogging along in Makar's straw-lined wagon from 
our village to Mintck, then travelling by railroad and 
finally packed into a wagon of mouldy hay and driven 
through swampy meadows in the dead of night, stealing 
across the boundary. Though a year had passed I could 
still feel the Russian soldier's heavy hand on my back, 
and hear his thick voice demanding, "What have you 




WITH BABY ON ONE ARM, A BUNDLE ON THE OTHER. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 143 

here?" The answer a jingle of silver coins and the thick 
voice call, "Drive on!" I pictured them sleeping in the 
bare, dirty little cots in Hamburg. I saw mother with 
the four children standing in the large hall all day for 
a week and waiting for their names to be called. Then 
I saw them in the midst of a hundred others bent over to 
one side or stooping under their bundles, passing through 
a sort of tunnel. Meekly, and looking neither to right 
nor to left, they followed a uniformed person. "Tramp, 
tramp, tramp," I heard the dull sound of many feet and 
two onlookers calling to each other, "The Emigrants!" 
and the echo calling back, "The Emigrants!" 

"But now," I thought joyfully, "they are on the 
steamer, very near America. How will mother like 
America ? Will she be much shocked at father's and my 
impiety?" For I too was not so pious now. I still per- 
formed some of the little religious rites assigned to a 
girl, but mechanically, not with the ever-present con- 
sciousness of God. There were moments of deep de- 
votion, but they were rare. 

Sometimes when I thought of it I felt sad, I felt as if 
I had lost something precious. 

The steamer was due on a Friday night, so they would 
have to spend still another night on it. That Friday 
both father and I came home earlier than usual. While 
he was washing up and polishing his shoes, and brushing 
his clothes, I cooked a fish dinner for seven people for 
the next day, and at the kind invitation of our neigh- 
bour over us, put it on her ice into the crowded little ice- 
box. Then I remembered that mother had no candles 
to light on the steamer. I would light them here. She 
usually lit five, one for each child. So I found a red 
brick on the street, washed it clean under the pump and 
used it as a candle holder. We had not bought any candle 



H4 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

sticks, as we expected our beautiful brass ones from 
home. I placed the clean brick on the table in the "front 
room, ,, covered now with a new white oil cloth. Then 
with a drop of the hot tallow from each candle I stuck 
them firmly on the brick in a straight row. I placed two 
white loaves at the other end of the table and covered 
them with a clean small towel. I lit the candles and 
embracing them three times, I covered my face with 
my hands and whispered the consecration prayer for my 
mother on the steamer. Then as I looked around the 
room I felt for the first time in this country the joyous 
Friday night spirit of the old home, in the new one. 

I sat out in the yard until father would be ready for 
supper. I watched the stars appearing one by one. From 
the open windows father's cheerful voice came chanting 
the Friday evening prayer. In the basement a rocker 
creaked and a little boy sang, "Sweet and low, sweet 
and low." 

The next morning at ten o'clock father and I again 
stood in Castle Garden. I do not know whether Aunt 
Masha was with us or not. As I look back now I can 
only see father and myself, he talking to an officer and I 
standing with my face pressed against iron bars. In 
what an agony of joy and fear I stood there! At first 
I was neither surprised nor disappointed when I looked 
about and did not see them at once. Feeling sure that 
they must be there, I could wait. Then it flashed through 
my mind, "But perhaps they are not here ! Perhaps they 
missed the steamer, perhaps they fell ill i** Then I saw 
them. It was as I often pictured them. Mother with 
baby on one arm, a bundle on the other, and the eight 
year old boy at her skirt, was following a uniformed 
American. She walked slowly with her head a little 
bent and her eyes on the ground. Her face looked so 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 145 

uncertain, as if she were not yet sure whether her 
journey was at an end and whether this was the place 
where she would meet us. After her came sister, quite 
bent under a bundle on her back and with the little four 
year old girl holding on to her skirt. Though she was 
so bent under her bundle her head was raised and her 
eyes were looking about eagerly. Then they met mine, 
and as she recognised me she dropped her bundle and 
ran screaming, "Mamma, there they are! There they 
are!" 

A few minutes later I heard my mother's tearful joy- 
ous voice close to me, "Rahel! Rahel! ,, 



PART THREE 



PART THREE 



XXXV 



For days father kept asking mother to tell him about 
herself, home, our friends, and relatives. He never 
seemed to grow tired of hearing it and she repeated the 
same thing over and over again. And I walked to and 
from the shop, spent the day there, and what was left 
of the evening at home, as though I were in a happy 
dream. Often during these first days I feared that 
mother's being here was only a dream. Often at such 
moments I watched her sitting at the window sewing, 
making a little shirt perhaps, out of a bit of muslin. I 
would go over to her, lean up against her a little shame- 
facedly, and ask her, "Mamma, are you really here in 
America?" She understood. She would laugh a little, 
press a corner of the little shirt to her eyes and say, "Yes, 
I am here." One day she said sadly, "Yes, all life is 
like a dream. To-day we are here, to-morrow God 
knows." Then she added, as though she were following 
a thought in her own mind, "Ah, if I had my youth to 
live over again, and if I had only known that I would 
have to be in America!" 

"What then, mother?" 

"Then," she said, as tears rolled down her cheeks and 
fell on the stitches, "I would have learned how to write 
even if I had had to go without bread sometimes. Ah, 
if at least I could write to my mother!" 

So even during these happy days there were tears. 

Mother, like Aunt Masha and myself, and all others 

149 



150 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

that I have known, felt bewildered and uncertain about 
herself and everything she did and said during these first 
days. It was pathetic to see how she looked up to me 
because I had already been here a year, and probably 
showed off a little. She treated me like a grown-up girl 
and allowed herself in her lovely quiet way to be guided 
by me in many little things. 

The children were a constant care and delight, espe- 
cially the two little ones. It was amusing to see how 
they were impressed by the different things. The little 
girl, four years old, thought it quite wonderful to have 
water right in the yard and running so easily. So as 
many times a day as she could steal away she would 
be found at the pump with her shoes and stockings off 
pumping water over her two little bare feet and rubbing 
them industriously. Once on hearing the baby — now 
two years old — screaming in the yard, we ran out and 
found him lying flat on his little stomach with his fair, 
curly head under the pump while the four year old stood 
at the handle, one little hand pumping with great diffi- 
culty and the other rubbing his head. 

Often in their play they imitated what they had seen 
on their journey. Being lately from the steamer they 
played "crossing the ocean." She was the great ocean 
steamer. She would stand in the middle of the yard, her 
feet wide apart, her hands on her little hips, rocking 
herself slowly from side to side, and roaring with great 
earnestness in imitation of the waves. Meanwhile the 
baby would drag the dish pan and a wooden spoon from 
the closet and strut around and around the yard banging 
on the pan and crying, "Metach! metach!" in German, 
announcing the meals on the steamer. 

Sister surprised me with her fearlessness in going 
about everywhere and her quickness in adopting Amer- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 151 

ican ways. She found her way quite easily. She would 
wash and dress the children, curl their hair on her finger, 
' 'American fashion," and take them out into the street. 
She would take them along wherever she went. She 
never stole away from them as I had often done from 
her. She and I shared one of the cots in the "front 
room." We used to lie with our arms about each other, 
whispering until way into the night. 

The boy, eight years old, was serious and sensitive and 
would not stand for any trifling. He liked to stand out 
on the street before the door and observe life in Amer- 
ica. As no money could be spared for new clothes the 
children had to wear out what they had. His shoes, made 
by our village shoemaker, were in excellent condition in 
spite of the rough treatment of fumigation and the wear- 
and-tear of the journey. But shoes more than any other 
article of clothing showed the "greenhorn." And so 
often he was so tormented by the children in the street 
that he would come into the house in tears. He begged 
and cried and demanded "American" shoes but it was 
no use. So he tried to see what he could do by knocking 
and rubbing them on stones. But these shoes of the 
homely strong Russian leather could stand it without 
showing more than a few scratches. 

One day when he went out into the street he did not 
return until dark, and then he was in his bare feet. On 
being asked what he had done with his shoes he said, with 
tears and an expression which said that he was prepared 
for the worst, that he had thrown them away. "Where?" 
He did not know, himself. Fearing that under a threat 
of punishment he might be weak enough to go and look 
for them, he threw them so that he himself should not 
be able to find them. He flung them, he said, from a 
strange roof, one in one direction, one in the other. He 



152 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

told his story and stood before father with his eyes on 
the ground ready to take the punishment which he knew 
would follow. 

That evening when father went out into the street 
he brought back a black strap of fringed leather with a 
wooden handle and hung it up in the big room on the 
door. 

Of father and myself, I was the more Americanised. 
Under pressure I could converse in English a little while, 
he could not talk it at all. So he left translating the chil- 
dren's names to me. I was delighted. I longed to call 
them by names that were not only American but also 
unusual. So as I sat in the shop I spent many hours 
thinking and sounding each name in my mind over and 
over again. But when I finally decided on all the names 
I felt uneasy at the thought that there was no resemblance 
between the Hebrew and the English names. So I just 
translated them into English after all. Sister, whose 
name was Leah, we called Leah; the little four year old 
girl changed from Meriam to Miriam; the baby was 
Asra. But at least one I could not resist calling by an 
uncommon name. I called the boy Morgan, though his 
name translated was Ezekiel. 

I knew I had a leaning toward things which I heard 
people call "queer." I felt ashamed and hid it whenever 
I was aware of it. I felt ashamed of my desire to call 
my brother Morgan but neither could I bear to give it 
up. So I called him by that name only when no one 
was by who was likely to ridicule me. 

Mother had been here only a short time when I noticed 
that she looked older and more old-fashioned than father. 
I noticed that it was so with most of our women, espe- 
cially those that wore wigs or kerchiefs on their heads. 
So I thought that if I could persuade her to leave off 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 153 

her kerchief she would look younger and more up to 
date. But remembering my own first shock, I decided to 
go slowly and be careful not to hurt her feelings. So, 
one day, when I happened to be at home and the chil- 
dren were playing in the yard, and we two were alone in 
the house, I asked her playfully to take off her kerchief 
and let me do her hair, just to see how it would look. 
She consented reluctantly. She had never before in her 
married life had her hair uncovered before any one. I 
took off her kerchief and began to fuss with her hair. It 
was dark and not abundant but it was soft and had a 
pretty wave in it. When I parted it in front and gath- 
ered it up in a small knot in the middle of the back of 
her head, leaving it soft over the temples, I was surprised 
how different she looked. I had never before known 
what a fine broad forehead my mother had, nor how soft 
were her blue-grey eyes, set rather deep and far apart. 
I handed her our little mirror from Cherry Street. She 
glanced at herself, admitted frankly that it looked well 
and began hastily to put on her kerchief as if she feared 
being frivolous too long. I caught hold of her hands. 

"Mamma," I coaxed, "please don't put the kerchief 
on again— ever !" 

At first she would not even listen to me. But I sat 
down in her lap and I began to coax and beg and reason. 
I drew from my year of experience and observation and 
pointed out that wives so often looked so much older 
because they were more old-fashioned, that the hus- 
bands were often ashamed to go out with them. I told 
her that it was so with Mrs. Felesberg and Mrs. Cohen. 
"And this nice woman upstairs," I said "if she would 
only take off her wig and ." 

Mother put her finger on my lips. 

"But father trims his beard," I still argued. Her face 



154 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

looked sad. "Is that why," she said, "I too must sin?" 

But I finally succeeded. 

When father came home in the evening and caught 
sight of her while still at the door, he stopped and looked 
at her with astonishment. "What!" he cried, half ear- 
nestly, half jestingly, "Already you are becoming an 
American lady!" Mother looked abashed for a moment; 
in the next, to my surprise and delight, I heard her 
brazen it out in her quiet way. 

"As you see," she said, "I am not staying far be- 
hind." ' 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 155 



XXXVI 

It was "slack' ' in our shop. Every week Mr. Cohen 
made me stay home a day or two. It was slack all over 
the city at all trades. Writers and lecturers now refer 
to that time as "the memorable years, 1893-94. Years 
of extreme economic depression." We felt this depres- 
sion when one day father came home from the shop at 
three o'clock in the afternoon. Not to alarm mother, 
who had been here only two months, he made light of 
the rumour that people were out of work all over the 
city. But when a few weeks passed and he began to 
stay home three and four days a week, he looked openly 
alarmed and began to talk of moving back to Cherry 
Street. And when two brothers and a sister, who were 
from our part of the country, came one night and asked 
to be taken in as "lodgers," we finally decided to do it. 
So, with our lodgers, we moved into a "room and two 
bedrooms," on Cherry Street again, this time between 
Jefferson and Clinton Streets. The rooms were on the 
stoop in the rear. The toilets, for the whole building, 
were in the yard, facing our windows, the water pump 
in the street hall. The rent was ten dollars a month. 
We gave the two brothers the little hall bedroom with 
the window, for the sister a cot was put up for the night 
in the large room with us children. They paid fiye dol- 
lars a month. So now we felt easier as our rent was 
only five dollars a month. 

But our easy days were not many. One night, soon 
after we had settled in our new home, Mr. Cohen called 
me over to his table, just as I was leaving, and told me 
that he had no work for me for the next day. This 



156 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

would make three days out for that week. Mr. Cohen 
saw that I was troubled and began to explain. 

"You see, Gussie is a woman and needs the money 

while you ." I felt irritated. I felt that because I 

was a child I was paid little. And even then they did 
not seem to think that I needed the money, as though I 
didn't have to live and help support my people. I burst 

out : "I too need it. My people have just come and ." 

I felt miserable. Gussie and I were good friends. 

"Oh, very well," Mr. Cohen said, quickly, "take turns 
then." 

A week passed perhaps when again just as we were 
going home, Mr. Cohen told Gussie that he was sorry but 
there was so little work that there was no use of her 
staying on. I dared not look at her face as he talked to 
her. When we came out into the street she walked away 
from me without saying "Good night." 

One by one I watched the men in our shop laid off. 
Finally there was just Mr. Cohen and his partner left. 
Then my turn came. 

A short time after I began to stay home father's shop 
was closed altogether. Every day now all over the city 
shops were being closed. Nevertheless father went out 
every morning, always looking bright, and hopeful of 
finding at least a few hours' work. He would return at 
noon looking not quite so bright. He was not discour- 
aged, but as week after week passed, his face grew 
thinner and the smile that had always lit up his whole 
face became rare. But still he spoke cheerfully. "This 
can't last much longer," he would say. "There must be 
an end to it. It is almost two months now." 

All this weighed more heavily on mother. Her face 
was paler, her features stood out sharply and her eyes 
seemed to have gone deeper into her head. She was 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 157 

always serious and now she looked as if a dreadful 
calamity were hanging over us. "Among strangers in 
a strange country." She began counting the potatoes 
she put into the pot and would ask the children over 
and over again when they wanted more bread, "Are you 
sure you want it?" 

Two months passed and a great change seemed to have 
come over the people. The closed shops turned the 
workers out into the streets and they walked about idly, 
looking haggard and shabby. Often as I sauntered along 
through Cherry or Monroe Street I would meet some 
one with whom I had worked. We avoided each other. 
We felt ashamed of being seen idle. We felt ashamed 
of our shabby clothes. We avoided each other's eyes 
to save each other pain and humiliation. The greeting 
of those who could not possibly avoid one another was 
something like this, "What ! A holiday in your shop, too ?" 
Nor would they remain talking long. Both would stand 
looking away gloomily for a few minutes and finally 
with a short nod they would walk apart dejectedly. 

Every day I saw on Cherry and Monroe Streets grocers 
closing up and women at the pushcarts haggling more 
and more desperately over a cent. 

"How much are these bananas? Five for a cent? 
They are not any bigger than my finger, and the skin 
is all black." 

"Oh, very well, take six! Take six for God's sake 
and go. I haven't made a cent to-day." 

One day as I was walking on Grand Street toward 
the Bowery, I saw a tall, slim man, coatless and bare- 
headed, with a rag bag over his shoulder, bent over a 
garbage can. There was something familiar to me about 
him. I was on the opposite side of the street and stood 
looking at him. And soon I remembered. He was, or 



158 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

he had been, a machine operator. He and his wife had 
been a merry couple and they had a sweet baby whom 
they adored. They had lived in our old 338 Cherry 
Street over the Felesbergs. I had often been in their 
home and watched them singing and dancing with their 
baby. Now I hardly recognised him. A ragged grey 
shirt covered his back. His long thin body was bent. 
His face looked black and hollow. But what struck me 
with horror was that he seemed entirely unaware that 
he was among human beings. He acted as though he 
felt himself in a lone desert. Feverishly he stood stirring 
the can with a stick. His eyes looked into it eagerly, and 
his lips were moving. 

As I recognised him I ran toward him a few steps. 
Then the full meaning of it all struck me. I threw my 
arms over my head and ran from him in terror. 

One day while mother and we children stood out on 
the stoop a woman we knew came over to us. She lived 
by doing all sorts of odd things, particularly by match- 
making and recommending girls to places of domestic 
service. And as she walked about the street, attending 
to her business, she knit a stocking. She was a stout, 
elderly woman, and wore a kerchief tied under her chin 
and tucked away behind her ears. 

She barely glanced at me and as her eyes returned 
to her quickly moving needles, "Missus," she said, "I 
have a place for your girl with a very nice family." 
Mother's lips drew together tightly. Without looking at 
mother the woman kept on talking in a slow persuasive 
tone. "There are only six in the family. They live on 
Clinton Street near Grand. I think they would pay her 
six dollars a month. Will you let her go?" 

My mother's face was white. "No!" she shook her 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 159 

head. She climbed up the stoop steps and went into 
the house. 

I followed her and asked, "Why don't you let me go, 
mother? Out of the six dollars we could pay our share 
of the rent for a whole month and have a dollar over. ,, 

She turned away from me, leaned against the wall and 
cried, "Is this what I have come to America for, that 
my children should become servants?" 

It was three months now since father and I had earned 
anything. We owed the landlord five dollars for this 
third month. We gave him just what the lodgers had 
paid us. What there was left of our own money we kept 
just for bread and a little milk for the two smaller 
children. Father used to bring the big round loaf of 
bread from the bread stand on Hester Street when he 
came home at night. We were always in bed then and 
the light in the lamp was turned low but I was often 
awake. Mother would sit up to wait for him and open 
the door and he would come in on tip toe, lay the bread 
on the table and sit down heavily beside it. Then mother 
would cut some of the bread, sweeten some hot water in 
a glass and give it to him. Then she would sit down 
on another chair near the table and sit staring on the 
floor in front of her while he ate his supper. He used 
to chew every mouthful a long time and drink the hot 
water slowly. Sometimes in the stillness I could hear 
a deep half -stifled sigh. 

They seldom spoke. Once I heard father ask, "How 
are the children?" 

"How should they be ?" she answered. "Hanging onto 
life." She covered her face and sobbed. 

In the morning father was gone on his daily hunt for 
work before we were up. He no longer came home at 
noon now, for when he was away he did not have to eat. 



160 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

The two older children, Leah and Ezekiel, were going 
to school and the two little ones we kept in bed as long 
as we could that they might be warm. For it was win- 
ter now and we had not much covering. Mother had 
not brought her five pillows, linens and candlesticks 
after all. She had sold everything in Hamburg for a 
few dollars, hearing a rumour that she would be allowed 
no luggage except what she could carry. Then she heard 
that the rumour had been raised that the emigrants might 
sell out. 

When the children came from school they would go 
out on the street and to the docks and pick up bits of 
coal, paper and wood and then we would make a fire. 
We used to put on water to boil and draw our chairs 
close to the stove, to draw all the warmth we could out 
of it. When our lodgers came home they often com- 
plained of the bitter cold in the house but they were not 
very well off themselves. They made knee pants and 
seldom had more than two days' work a week. 

The small school which the children attended was, I 
think, connected with a church or a missionary society. 
One day when the children came home they told us that 
any child in the class who would say a prayer received 
a slice of bread and honey. Mother looked at them 
and asked them to tell her about it. Sister said, "There 
is nothing to tell. If you just bow your head as you 
sit at the desk, and repeat the prayer after the teacher 
you receive a slice of white bread and honey." 

We heard a great deal about the missionaries that 
winter. On Grand Street, at the corner of Attorney 
Street, there was a big store with green shades which 
were always drawn. In this store we knew the mis- 
sionaries held a meeting every Saturday. We heard that 
the head of the missionaries was a baptised Jew. I heard 



I 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 161 

my parents express their anger because they came and 
settled right in the heart of the Jewish neighbourhood. 
We children used to run past the store with a feeling of 
fear and then stand at a little distance and look at it. 
I often went back to look inside through a worn part of 
the shade, and saw a man standing up and talking and a 
few people in the back of the room listening. Week 
after week the man preached almost to an empty room. 
Still we hated to have them in the neighbourhood to 
tempt our people. 

One Saturday afternoon father came home and said 
that he had just passed the missionaries* store on Grand 
Street. "They are doing good business these days," he 
said. "As I passed, the door opened and I saw the place 
crowded with people." We heard that any one who went 
there and listened to the lectures received food and cloth- 
ing. 

A young man, who was a friend of our lodgers, used 
to come to visit them. When he became well acquainted 
with us he would come in at any time during the day, 
even when his friends were out. Of course he was out 
of work. It was six months now since he had earned 
anything. He looked like the rest of us, shabby, despond- 
ent, half -starved. If he happened to come in when we 
were having a meal mother always invited him to eat 
with us. He would take the bread which, like father, 
he chewed slowly, and often said, "This is very good 
bread." 

He would sit and argue with mother, trying to con- 
vince her that it was no sin to accept food from mis- 
sionaries when one was almost starving. 

"But do they give it to you? You have to show that 
you believe with them, that you accept their religion." 



162 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

"Even so," he said. "The sin would be theirs for mak- 
ing such demands from starving people/' 

After he was gone mother said, "That is all talk. He 
is not religious but after all he is a Jew. Oh, God," she 
would say, with a touch of pride, "one only has to look 
into his sunken eyes to see starvation and yet he does 
not go to them." 

Another month passed and all our money was gone. 
For a week or so we borrowed from our lodgers ten and 
fifteen cents at a time until we had a dollar. Then we 
did not know what to do. We would not ask the coal 
man and the grocer to "trust" us. We had never 
owed any one, and father and mother shrank from the 
very thought of owing. Besides, the coal man and the 
grocer hardly knew us. We had not bought much coal 
and bread was a cent cheaper at the big stand on Hester 
Street. On the morning when father took the last few 
cents he went away earlier than usual. And mother 
walked about with slow shuffling steps from room to 
room. As the children were leaving for school she asked 
them without looking at them, whether bread and honey 
was still given to the children at school. 

"Yes," sister said, "to those who bow their heads and 
pray." 

The boy was already out of the room when mother 
called after them. "You can bow your heads and pray." 

Then she went into her dark bedroom. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 163 



XXXVII 

Mother did not come out of the room that day. In 
the morning I was awakened by hearing her moan- 
ing. I lit the lamp and went in and looked at her. Her 
face was red and her chest rose and fell rapidly. For 
the first time this morning father looked really discour- 
aged when he left the house. After the two older children 
went to school I tucked the little ones into one of the 
cots to play. Every day they remained in bed more 
willingly and played more quietly. I gave mother some 
water and milk and went in to ask our front neighbour 
what I could do for mother. She said she would see 
that a doctor came and made me understand that there 
were doctors who treated without a fee. And then she 
added : "As long as your mother is ill you need not fear 
that the landlord will put you out. It is against the law." 
I ran to mother with the good news. When I told her she 
looked at me as if she did not understand, so I explained : 

"It is a law in America that when you are sick ." 

Mother turned her face to the wall and gave an unpleas- 
ant chuckle which ended in a sob. 

The doctor came at three o'clock in the afternoon. I 
lit the lamp and showed him into the sick room. He 
stopped in the middle of it, looked about at the walls 
and the ceiling, and shrugged his shoulders. After he 
examined mother he shrugged his shoulders again. 
Finally he wrote out a prescription, said crossly that he 
would come again the next day at ten o'clock and went 
away. 

When father came home in the evening and I told 
him that the landlord could not put us out, he told me 



164 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

to use the money which the lodgers had just paid us for 
the medicine and bread and coal. 

Mother grew worse. All day I walked from the chil- 
dren's cot to her room, where a little lamp burned steadily 
now, and then back to the children's cot. I felt as though 
I were in a nightmare. I never remembered mother ill 
before. She was the strongest in our family. And now 
to see her lying so still with her eyes closed and not even 
moaning, filled me with terror. 

The doctor came every morning at ten o'clock. He 
did not tell me what her illness was and I dared not 
ask. Every day he would sit down on the bed, make me 
hold the lamp so that the light fell on her face, and sk 
looking at her. And I watched his face and hers and 
tried to understand. Sometimes I saw mother trying 
to rouse herself from her stupor. She would give her 
head a shake as if she were trying to shake something off. 
I could hear her teeth close tightly and her chin seemed 
to square a little. Then she would open her eyes and I 
saw for a moment a steady, determined look. I had 
often seen her so when she had something to overcome. 
I understood that this was the fight in her. I re- 
membered the same look when she was planning father's 
escape from the constable in Russia. And I recalled 
seeing it one snowy, stormy night when one of the chil- 
dren woke up choking with the croup and she could not 
get any one to go for the doctor. The road lay through 
a thick wood and wolves had been seen there. So she 
wrapped herself in a shawl, tucked up her skirt, took a 
staff and started. At dawn she returned struggling 
through the snow in front of the man, making a path for 
him. I noticed that the doctor always looked pleased 
when he caught this expression. Gradually I began to 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 165 

understand that he depended on the fighting spirit in 
her. And I too began to look for it. 

Beside the doctor two other people came every day, 
the landlord and the young man, our lodgers' friend. 
The landlord was a gentle, quiet, prosperous looking old 
man with a white moustache. He wore fine black 
clothes, black gloves and a high silk hat. It was strange 
to see him among us. As long as we had some money 
to pay he came every week and inquired whether father 
was working. But now that we had nothing to give 
he came every day. He would knock gently on the door, 
come in on tip toes and ask quietly and cheerfully, "And 
how is your mother this morning ?" When I told him, 
"The same," he would give a short nod and tip toe out 
with his head bent a little lower. I used to look forward 
to his coming. He was the only person who came among 
us that did not show suffering. I used to wish he would 
stay a little and talk to me. 

The young man would come in, ask about mother and 
then sit down on a chair near the window from where 
he could see the whole house, and sit watching me as 
I went from mother to the children and then back to 
her. 

Once Aunt Masha came. She was dressed in an old 
brown dress which in better days she had discarded. 
She stayed a little while, gave the children a thorough 
washing and went away. I believe now that she must 
have come more than this once, but this time is the only 
one I can recall during this period. 

One day a well dressed strange young man came in. 
He made sure of our name at the door and then came 
and sat down at the window, opened a little book and 
began to question me about my family, my father's name, 
his trade, how long he had been out of work, how much 



166 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

he had earned, how long mother had been ill and so on. 
As I was answering his questions I was in agony of 
fear, wondering whether this had anything to do with 
the landlord and whether after all we would be thrown 
out into the street. He stopped for a few minutes and 
I sat down on the cot closer to the children. The young 
man continued : 

"Where does your doctor come from?" 

"From Essex Street dispensary." 

"Do you need anything?" 

I stared at him. He looked up and asked over again, 
patiently, 

"Do you need anything?" 

"Do we need anything!" I could not believe I heard 
right. It seemed such a strange question and I did not 
answer and he repeated the question in Yiddish. I finally 
did understand and I heard myself say, "No." Still 
thinking that I did not understand he asked : 

"Do you need any clothes?" 

I shook my head. 

"Do you need any shoes?" He looked at mine. 

"No," I said. 

"Do you need any food?" 

"No " 

"Have you everything?" 

"Everything," I repeated, but I could not look at him. 

He wrote rapidly for a few minutes and then he went 
away. 

I went in to mother and bent over her, thinking that 
perhaps I could tell her about it. The heat beat from 
her body and her eyes were closed. I touched her and 
she opened them. And when I looked into them I knew 
she would not understand. 

In the evening when father was home our neighbour 




HE FLUNG THEM FROM A STRANGE ROOF. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 167 

brought in four dollars. "A strange young man left it," 
she said, and the next day there was a half ton of coal. 

Friday came. Even now, as I look back, it seems 
to me that weeks had passed since mother fell ill. And 
yet it might have been only days. This morning she 
lay in deep unconsciousness and the doctor spent a longer 
time looking at her. After I got the children to play 
quietly in a corner I began to prepare for the Sabbath. 
There was little to prepare as there was no cooking to 
do. I polished our candlesticks which we had bought 
here, and scrubbed the floor in the large room and then 
began to wash up the floor in the sick room. The light 
of the tiny lamp hanging on the wall only seemed to in- 
crease the gloom. How I wished, as I crept about on my 
hands and knees, that mother would wake and see how 
industrious I was, how I was tormented for ever having 
hurt her! 

Late in the afternoon our lodgers' friend came. When 
I looked at him I was shocked and I knew that he had 
been to the missionaries. He was dressed in new clothes 
from head to foot and his face was clean shaven. He 
stood still with his back against the door for a moment 
and his face reddened as I stood staring at him. He 
asked his usual question about mother, and took his 
seat at the window. And, as if to try his first sermon 
he began to upbraid me for my pale face and red eyes, 
saying that mother would get well much sooner if I 
were more cheerful. Also, I ought to cheer up for the 
sake of the children, — a girl almost fourteen years old 
ought to know better — and so on. 

I bought two candles for a cent. I had a cent for 
candles, for we could go without bread but not with- 
out consecrating candles. I cut them in half to make 
four and placed them into the candlesticks. When it 



168 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

grew dark I lit them, gave one to each of the children, 
and we all walked and stood beside mother's bed. It 
took us a long time to rouse her. We had to repeat again 
and again, "Mother, this is Friday night. ,, At last she 
opened her eyes and looked at all our faces one after 
the other. And when she realised what we wanted her 
to do, she raised her hands but instead of the usual 
prayer the words came, "God have pity on my children !" 

At midnight I tumbled out of the cot thinking that I 
heard her calling. When father and I bent over her we 
saw that a change had taken place. Her face was paler 
and was wet with perspiration. 

"Medicine !" She made out the word with her lips. 
Father gave it to her, and then she told us in that voice- 
less way of the sick, that she dreamt her father who 
had been dead a long while came and brought her a 
bottle of medicine. Father's face lit up with joy. "Thank 
God !" he said, "that was a good dream." 

When the doctor came the next day and when he 
looked at mother a smile lit up his cross face. Another 
doctor was with him. "Look at this," our doctor said, 
pointing to the ceiling and walls. "And she has pulled 
through in this room. God! but she must have a con- 
stitution of iron!" 

With his usual gruffness the doctor now ordered 
chicken soup, milk and wine for mother. And only now 
father went and told our neighbour openly of our diffi- 
culties. She advised him hesitatingly to go and apply at 
"Eighth Street." Eighth Street was how we referred 
to the United Hebrew Charities. 

Monday morning after eating some bread father 
started for "Eighth Street." He returned in the evening 
empty handed and sick with humiliation. When he 
reached the building there was already a long line of 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 169 

people. He stood all day waiting for his turn. He was 
nowhere near the "window" when the place closed. Next 
morning, he left at dawn. The day passed and it was 
dark when we heard his footsteps in the hall. When he 
opened the door, we saw a pair of chicken feet sticking 
out of the bag. Father sat down at the table and wept 
like a child. 



170 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XXXVIII 

Now it was sister who was supporting the family. 
She ran errands for the women on the block and 
"minded" the babies. She was eleven years old and 
small for her age, but no one who looked at her face 
hesitated to trust her. Sometimes a mother would leave 
her children with her and go out to work. And sister 
would tidy up the house, dress and feed the children and 
keep them out. Often when I ran out for something, I 
met her in the street, wrapped in a woman's coat and 
carrying one little one on her back while two or three 
others were at her side. Her freckled small nose looked 
pinched, but she would look up so bravely with her soft 
grey eyes as she stood slightly bent under her burden. 
And in the evening she would bring home a few nickels. 

One night she was taken to a wedding to take care of 
two children. The next day we two stood at the window 
and she was telling me about it. That hour impressed 
itself on my memory. It was cold and raining but there 
was a good fire in our stove. Father, as usual now, 
was out "looking for work"; the boy was in school; 
mother, still a convalescent, was lying on a cot napping; 
the two little ones were playing quietly in a corner, and 
we two were at the window. What she had seen would 
have seemed wonderful to her at any time. In her pres- 
ent half-fed state, and in the same worn little plaid dress 
in which she had come from Russia, she had been almost 
overcome by the sight of the splendours. Her eyes were 
big and in her voice there was still expression of awe 
as she described the immense hall, the lights, the bride 
in her white lace veil and train, the bridegroom with a 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 171 

white flower in his buttonhole. As the children in her 
care were only two and four years they soon grew 
tired of running up and down the slippery floor. So 
she had to go early to the little retiring room at the back 
of the hall. This room was almost dark. There was 
a little table and a couch. On the couch a few children 
were already sleeping so she sat down on the floor oppo- 
site the door with one child in her lap, pillowed the other 
against her side and sat and rocked them. She sat 
rocking them all through the night. The children 
weighed heavily against her. But sometimes when she 
could raise her head a little, she watched the dancers 
passing the door. 

"The women looked so beautiful," she said, "in pink 
or blue, or white silk ; and their hair shone as they danced 
by. When the music was low I could hear them laugh- 
ing, they looked so happy !" 

She looked thoughtfully for a moment into the yard. 
The rain was splashing down on the red roofs of the 
toilets. From a line a few pieces of clothes were flap- 
ping. 

"I wonder," she said, "how it feels to be happy!" 

Soon after this the agent came again and told mother 
that she had a place for me. This time mother had to 
let me go. I did not mind going. It was not only that 
we were in dire need, I wanted to know how it felt to 
be a servant; also how the rich people lived. There was 
no doubt in my mind that the family where I was going 
would be rich. How else could they keep a servant? 

I packed a few things into a newspaper and mother 
went with me to the door. She neither cried nor spoke 
but when I looked at her I knew what she was suffering. 
We all felt as if I were going a great distance away. I 



172 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

kissed the children, and sister ran out and watched me 
from the stoop as I walked away with the agent. 

This family also lived on Clinton Street, near Broome. 
Their name was Corlove. Mrs. Corlove was a tall, an- 
gular woman with a yellowish complexion and sharp 
grey eyes. She engaged me for two months and I was 
to receive six dollars for the first month and seven for 
the second. 

When the agent was gone she told me that the baby 
whom she was rocking was two weeks old and that the 
floors were dirty because there had been a party the day 
before. Then she gave me an old skirt and told me 
where to find a pail and brush. There were three rooms. 
The kitchen and bedroom had windows looking into a 
courtyard but it was as dark in there as in our window- 
less bedroom at home. And I had to scrub them by gas 
light. 

When I was through Mrs. Corlove looked under the 
bed and into the dark corners of the kitchen, and I saw 
that she was pleased. 

There were six people in the family. Besides Mr. 
and Mrs. Corlove and their three children, Mrs. Cor- 
love's brother lived with them. I sat down to supper 
with them at the table. There was soup, meat, potatoes 
and a heaping plate-ful of bread. I felt almost overcome 
at the smell and abundance of the food. But I clasped 
my hands in my lap and waited for the others to begin. 
At the first mouthful I remembered that there was noth- 
ing but bread at home, and I could not swallow. 

Directly after the dishes were put away Mrs. Cor- 
love gave me two old quilts and a pillow and showed me 
how to make a bed of chairs in the kitchen. This room 
connected the bedroom and the "front room" where a 
flaring gas light burned and the family sat up talking. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 173 

I heard the clock strike eleven when they went to bed. 
This was Wednesday night. I fell asleep thinking that 
I would ask Mrs. Corlove for half of my wages the 
first thing in the morning and take it home so that mother 
could use some of it for the Sabbath. 

The next day I rose early and worked all day. I swept 
and dusted, polished the stove and the candlesticks. I 
washed some of the clothes and prepared the vegetables 
for supper. And all the time I kept thinking about the 
money and could not get up courage to ask. So I kept 
putting it off from minute to minute. Each new piece 
of work I began I told myself: "When I get through 
with this, I'll surely ask." 

So the day passed and again it was after supper. I 
felt disgusted with myself. I realised that I was ca- 
pable of putting it off forever. It occurred to me that 
I must do it suddenly without giving myself time to 
think. As this thought came I fairly ran into the kitchen 
where Mrs. Corlove was and asked her breathlessly: 

"Will you please give half of my wages in advance?" 

She looked at me hard and said she would talk it 
over with her husband. Soon I was called into the front 
room. I stood before them and they both looked at me. 
Mrs. Corlove said : 

"You may take the money to your people Saturday." 

My heart sank and I stood without being able to say 
a word. Then I heard Mr. Corlove ask : "Do you want 
it sooner?" His voice was kind. I nodded my head. 
He took a roll of bills from his pocket, counted off six 
dollars and gave it to me. I crammed it into my hand 
and hastened into the kitchen where my little shawl hung 
on a nail. I wrapped it around my head and shoulders 
and ran out. 

I could have sung for joy as I went, half running, 



174 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

half walking. I held my hand with the money against 
my breast under the shawl. I had never had so much 
money in my possession. 

"What will mother buy?" I wondered. "Perhaps 
meat and a Sabbath loaf and candles." 

I could see them all sitting around the table covered 
with a white cloth and bright with the candlesticks and 
the lights, and I could hear father saying grace over the 
white loaf. 

I went into the house without knocking. Everything 
looked so strange to me, as though I had been away a 
long time. The lamp in the bracket burned dimly and 
was smoking a little and there seemed so little life. I 
could not help comparing this home with that other 
brightly lit cheerful home. 

The children came running to meet me at the door. 
I felt their loving arms about me, and mother, both 
frightened and glad, asked: "What is the matter! You 
are all out of breath!" Then I opened my hand and 
showed them what I had. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 175 



XXXIX 

Living with the Corloves was a great change for me. 
At home I had been spared all the hard work for my 
health had continued to be poor. But now I was sud- 
denly treated not only as if my strength were normal 
but unlimited. I rose when the men rose to go to work, 
and as they had to come into the kitchen to wash at the 
sink, I would creep into the niche behind the stove to 
dress. On Monday morning, as I crouched there, I 
listened for Mrs. Corlove's footsteps and the thud of 
the big bundle of clothes on the floor. When I heard 
it I crept out quickly, whether completely dressed or not, 
and my work began. I carried up the coal from the 
cellar and made the fire, I lifted the boiler half filled 
with clothes, I washed and scrubbed all day long. When 
night came I crept gladly in between the two soiled quilts 
on my chairs. And though the house was full of life, for 
the gas lights flared, the people talked and the children 
ran races from room to room, I slept. Tuesday and 
Wednesday I ironed. On Thursday I scaled the fish 
and plucked and cleaned the fowl. Soon my hands grew 
red and coarse and I was no longer repelled at touch- 
ing soiled or mushy things. I would run out to the store 
with my hands covered with flour or black with the 
scrubbing water, for Mrs. Corlove could never wait for 
me to wash them. 

One Thursday, while I was cleaning out the fowl, 
she called: "Run to the store quickly and never mind 
your hands." As I was running down the stoop 
steps I thought I caught sight for a moment of my 
mother's face. It looked so pale in the light of the 



176 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

street lamp. I had been thinking of her and in my pres- 
ent haste and usual absent-mindedness, I thought that 
I was still seeing her in imagination and did not stop to 
look but ran across to the grocer's. But a few minutes 
later, as I was coming back, I was more alive to things, 
and the thought of that moment took more concrete 
form. I thought that I must have really seen her and 
that it would be just like my mother to come and stand 
there hoping to see me. I ran to the shadowy spot near 
the street lamp, but no one was there. The next moment 
I caught her hiding in the hall of the next building. 

Mother managed it so that I should see some one or 
other from home often. Usually it was my sister and 
brother. They would knock timidly on the door and 
come in holding each other tightly by the hand and 
remain standing near the door. I felt timid and humble 
myself in this house. But to see them hurt me so that 
I often wished mother did not send them. Mrs. Cor- 
love would usually call to them : "Come, sit down, chil- 
dren." Then she would pick out an apple from the glass 
bowl, which usually stood on the table, cut it into four 
parts, give us each a quarter and put the fourth quarter 
back. 

Little by little I began to know Mrs. Corlove and the 
rest of the family too. I thought her an excellent house- 
wife but exacting and in other ways too not over-gen- 
erous to me. She always doled out the food on my 
plate. It was usually the tail of the fish, the feet and the 
gizzard of the chicken, the bun to which some mishap 
had occurred. And she would look through the whole 
bowl of apples to find for me a spotted one. She rarely 
failed to remark at meals: "What an enormous appetite 
you have !" She always said it with a smile of surprise 
as if she were merely interested. So she covered every 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 177 

act with a coating of kindness. Sunday was wash day so 
she would send me to bed early on Saturday night and 
without supper. For that night no regular meal was 
prepared because we had "a good dinner." The first 
two or three times she exclaimed: "Surely you cannot 
be hungry after such a meal!'' After that she did not 
need to say it. I used to lie awake and try to make 
believe there was no food in the house. I had never 
found making believe so hard as in those days, for all 
the time I kept seeing the sweetened bread in the bread 
box. Late that night I would see the family sit down to 
tea and cake. 

It was hard to see sweetmeats and food about and not 
take them. Perhaps if I had had enough even of coarse 
food the temptation would not have been so great. But 
I could never eat enough even of bread with Mrs. Cor- 
love's eyes watching me. And if you were only fourteen, 
and perhaps even if you were older, you too would be 
likely to begin thinking of a way to take it. You would 
say perhaps, "After all, she never told me not to take it." 
And if you did remember her forbidding eyes you would 
say to yourself : "Perhaps I only imagined it." At any 
rate that was the way I reasoned one day, when Mrs. 
Corlove went to the butcher and there was a cold cracker 
dust pan cake in the pan on the stove. For weeks I 
had watched Mrs. Corlove bake these pan cakes. I had 
often had to carry plateful after plateful to some one or 
other in the family, and I could see the steam rising from 
them and the tiny drops of hot butter breaking up like 
bubbles. At these moments the desire to taste them was 
so strong that it was a pain. And this time there was 
one such cake left over as if to tempt me. It was morn- 
ing. I went about sweeping and dusting and all the time 
I could see the cake on the pan. Finally I went to the 



178 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

stove and stood looking at the cake and tried to imagine 
how it would taste cold. My mouth watered and I could 
think of nothing else. Then, as if of its own accord, I 
saw my hand go out and take it. 

No sooner was the act done than I felt like Eve, per- 
haps, after she ate the apple. I took the two steps into 
the dark corner near the stove and pressed my face 
against the wall. 

Mrs. Corlove missed the pancake immediately on her 
return. She said nothing but she gave me a look and 
a smile that hurt more than blows could have done. 

Mrs. Corlove's brother was a big ill-natured fellow. 
His sister put up with all his whims and she seemed fond 
and proud of him. I used to hear her boasting to her 
friends that he was musical. He was a machine operator 
and when he was not working he would sit for hours 
in the rocker in the front room playing "After the Ball 
is Over" on the accordion. 

Mr. Corlove was quite different from his family. He 
was gentle and kind to everybody. When he was in the 
house I did not feel so timid and liked to come out of 
the dark kitchen into the front room. He was a foreman 
in a large clothing shop and when he found that I knew 
of the shop he spoke to me as to a fellow worker 
of the same trade. He often took my part against his 
brother-in-law who enjoyed making me get up from the 
table and wait on him. He even defended me against 
his wife. 

I had learned during the first days that being Mrs. 
Corlove' s servant meant that I was everybody's servant. 
When Mrs. Corlove's relatives came to the house they 
ordered me about as freely as Mrs. Corlove herself. But 
I never gave this a thought. This was her home and 
they were her guests. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 179 

One day a sister-in-law of hers was moving. A few 
days before Mrs. Corlove told me to take the pail and 
brush and go scrub the floors in the new rooms. I sel- 
dom fully realised things until they had happened and 
were past. And now too, not until I was in the empty 
rooms and saw the filthy, hard trodden floors, did I fully 
perceive the injustice of Mrs. Corlove' s order. Then I 
sat down on the floor and cried passionately. I cried 
not only for this but for many other things which I 
could not understand or understood but vaguely. I cried 
until I was again patient and meek. Then I went on my 
knees, scrubbed the floors and went home. 

The gas was already lit in the kitchen and Mrs. Cor- 
love was preparing supper. She looked at my face with 
surprise when I came in but said nothing. I went about 
helping with the supper and keeping out of sight as much 
as I could. But Mr. Corlove had not been in the house 
two minutes when he asked his wife: "What is the 
matter with her?" 

"Oh, nothing," she said lightly, "Fannie, you know, 
is going to move to-morrow." 

"Well?" 

"So I sent her to scrub her floors." 

He stopped in the middle of the kitchen and looked at 
her as if he did not understand. 

"Do you mean to say," he asked, drawing out his 
words, "that you sent her to scrub Fannie's floors?" 

"Oh, three little floors!" 

I never imagined that a man so quiet and gentle could 
look so angry. His dark eyes flashed fire and he said 
hard things. Late that night from my chairs I heard 
them talking this thing over, as I had often heard them 
talk other things over. 



180 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

"Every one's comfort is more to you than mine," she 
sobbed. 

"You know it is not so." His voice was very tender. 
"You don't seem to realise how unjust it was to the 
girl. You hired her to do your work, not Fannie's, and 
she is still but a child. Supposing it was our little 
Tynke !" His voice dropped so low that I barely caught 
the words: "Who knows," he said, "to-day, it is this 
man's daughter; to-morrow, it might be ours." 

In the silence that followed I heard the little girl's crib 
moved and I knew that the mother moved it closer to 
her bed. 

Near the end of my second month I remember a beau- 
tiful day in March. Mrs. Corlove rarely left the house 
but on this bright warm day she took all the children 
and went out and I was left there for the first time quite 
alone. It was Wednesday afternoon and I was sitting at 
the window making barley noodles. It seemed so quiet 
after the hustle and bustle of preparation to go out. I 
chopped and listened to the rhythmical sound of my two 
knives and watched the streak of sunlight on the window 
sill which came slanting in between the two tenements. 

Gradually I began chopping more and more slowly. 
Finally I laid down the knives and rested my hands on 
the edge of the bowl. I saw that my hands were coarse 
and red, and here and there where the skin was cracked 
they were raw. I remembered how I had wanted to 
know how it felt to be a servant and I laughed at myself. 

"I should not like to be a servant all the time," I 
thought. I looked out of the window and gradually I 
began to reason it out. I realised that though in the 
shop too I had been driven, at least there I had not been 
alone. I had been a worker among other workers who 
looked upon me as an equal and a companion. The only 




WOMEN AT THE PUSH-CARTS HAGGLED MORE AND MORE 
DESPERATELY OVER A CENT. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 181 

inequality I had ever felt was that of age. The evening 
was mine and I was at home with my own people. Often 
I could forget the shop altogether for a time, while as 
a servant my home was a few hard chairs and two soiled 
quilts. My every hour was sold, night and day. I had 
to be constantly in the presence of people who looked 
down upon me as an inferior. I felt, though in a child's 
way, that being constantly with people who looked upon 
me as an inferior, I was, or soon would be an inferior. 
I was looked upon as dull, nothing was expected from 
me and I would have nothing to give. The pancake in- 
cident had made a deep impression and had been tor- 
menting me. I understood that under these conditions 
and in this atmosphere what had happened once was 
bound to happen again. Little by little I would become 
used to it and not mind it. My whole being shrank from 
this and similar things to which it might lead. I realised 
that I could not boast many qualities. But to what I had, 
even if it were only not to be sly, I clung with all my 
strength. "No," I concluded, taking up the knives, and 
beginning to chop quickly to make up for the time lost, 
"I would rather work in a shop." 



182 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XL 



A few days later I left the Corloves. My belongings 
were wrapped in a newspaper and tucked under my arm, 
and I had seven dollars in my hand. I stopped on the 
stoop. The sun shone and the April breeze felt like a 
caress. It seemed strange not to have to hurry. Only 
now did I realise how tired I was. I felt my hands burn 
and my whole body tremble a little. 

I stood looking about, feeling both joy and regret. 
For I left the Corloves not with indifference. I had 
grown fond of the children, and even Mrs. Corlove 
herself, as I grew to know and understand her, I did not 
dislike her. But what a joy it was to know that I was 
free ! Father would find work for me at once, for there 
was now a sprinkling of work over the city and he him- 
self was working at last. But this day at any rate was 
before me. How I loved the sun ! I walked home slow- 
ly, basking in it. 

Before many days passed I was working in a shop 
on Canal Street. Father had not yet been working a full 
week. But after the hardship we had suffered eight 
dollars every week seemed a fortune. Mother began 
paying off what we owed the landlord and she even man- 
aged to save a few cents every week for a piece of 
material to make up a little dress for whichever one of 
us needed it most. The children were going to school 
and things were running smoothly. 

But it was not for long. Soon again mother went 
about her work looking worried and perplexed and we 
children were again aware of the darkness in the bedroom 
and that the sun never came into the big room. "Per- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 183 

haps," mother sighed, "a human being must not have it 
comfortable long or he would forget God." 

This was the trouble: with the coming of the warm 
days my health became so poor that I had to stay away 
from work quite often. Mother was the more alarmed 
because she could not understand what was wrong. There 
seemed nothing wrong. But the slightest exertion made 
my temples throb and my head go around. The shop 
where I was working now was on the top floor. I would 
stand long and look up the stairs before beginning to 
climb. It seemed like a dream that I ever ran up and 
down stairs for pure amusement. Then came a morn- 
ing when I could not get up at all. I stayed in bed two 
days and mother made inquiries and found that Gouver- 
neur Street Dispensary was not far away and "quite 
free." So on the third morning, which was Monday, 
she helped me dress and we started. Many times on the 
way we had to stop to rest on door steps. At last we 
came to a small ground floor building near Gouverneur 
Street dock. A policeman stood at the door and a few 
people were in line. We took our places and the police- 
man told us the door would open at nine o'clock. 

I stepped a little out of the line to lean against the 
wall. The sun was beating down strongly on our heads, 
but from the water a refreshing breeze came up and 
we could hear the boats, while from a reddish, smoke 
covered building came the cry of geese. 

Mother, too, was looking around. She was easily in- 
terested in everything about her. She remarked now : 
'That must be a slaughter house," and then, partly per- 
haps to take my attention away from myself, she mo- 
tioned sadly to the line. This was our first experience 
with a Dispensary. 

There were three people in the line ahead of us. Next 



184 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

to me was a man with his arm in a sling who looked like 
an Irish dock laborer. Next to him another, with saw- 
dust clinging to his clothes, wavered unsteadily. The 
first was a woman whose home I knew was the dark hall- 
way and the park bench. 

As we were going in the policeman handed us each 
a red cardboard ticket with a black number on it. I 
saw the woman, as she passed him, raise her chin and 
steady her step. We all sat down on the first bench. I 
leaned against my mother, closed my eyes, and sat wait- 
ing for my turn. 

This doctor, like the first I had seen, raised my eye- 
lids and asked how long I had been so pale. He ad- 
vised mother to feed me up and keep me outdoors. I 
translated what he said and mother asked timidly, "Ask 
him what is the matter." He understood and answered 
in German "Anemia." 

And now I became mothers first care. She saved on 
food that the others needed and bought milk and meat 
for me, and that I might be able to eat it in peace she 
would take the children out of the house. Often the 
little girl would refuse to go out. She would raise herself 
on tiptoe to look into my plate and lisp wistfully: 
"I wish I were sick." 

In a few weeks I was strong enough to go to the shop 
again. But what took weeks to build up I lost in a few 
days and soon again I was staying home, this time going 
to the Dispensary regularly. As I stood there in line or 
sat on the bench in the waiting room, waiting for my 
turn, I grew to know many of the people who, like my- 
self, came often, and to be familiar with every nook 
and corner in the room. I came every week and one 
week was exactly like another. There was the same 
room, many of the same people, and each time the 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 185 

same thing happened. First, on coming into the waiting 
room, we would all sit down, heavily. After this it be- 
came very still in the room. I would close my eyes for 
a moment with a feeling of relief at having my feet off 
the floor. Then, rested a moment, I would look about at 
the others. I knew at once from their faces, and even 
from their unconscious backs, I could gather who was 
better, who was worse, and who was the same. Then I 
would look about the room. There was the same un- 
painted, cleanly scrubbed floor, the shining brass knobs 
of the two doors on the right, and the one on the left, 
and the tiny staircase leading up. Then again I would 
study the men and women, more slowly this time, and 
aware now of every sound and motion, a hand unsteadily 
raised to the forehead, a half suppressed cough sounding 
loud in the stillness, a patient sigh, a feverish look. Next 
as the time of waiting lengthened, I became aware of 
the air in the room, the hot breath of sick people mixed 
with the odour of medicines, the breath of tobacco and 
stale whiskey. At this period of waiting I lost my inter- 
est in everything, my spirit had sunk with a heavy de- 
pression. Of the rest of the people some dozed heavily, 
some moved about restlessly in their seats and others, like 
myself, were given over to dull apathy. 

Then one of the doors on the right would open quickly 
and cause a stir on the benches, and a wave of new life 
passed through the room. I loved to watch the patients 
coming out of the doctor's office. Every face looked 
brighter, more hopeful. 



186 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XLI 



When we finished paying what we owed the land- 
lord, our lodgers moved away, and we moved again into 
three rooms on the same block but nearer to Clinton 
Street. We were glad to find rooms so near, for we 
could save the moving expenses. Late one night when 
father came home from work he and mother carted over 
the furniture on a push cart, the children carried the 
clothes and pots and pans in their arms and I stayed 
in the new rooms and put things in their places as they 
came in. 

We liked moving from one place to another. Every 
one on Cherry, Monroe and other streets moved often. 
It meant some hard work but we did not mind that be- 
cause it meant change in scenery and surroundings. 
None of the places were pretty and most of them were 
dingy. But moving even from one dingy place to an- 
other is a change. And then, too, some were less dingy 
than others. Here, for instance, the living room, instead 
of being painted an ugly green that had made everything 
look dark, and that had depressed our spirits, was a 
bright pink. Also there were two windows facing the 
street through which the sun came in. And if there was 
less privacy, for the rooms were on the stoop, just a few 
steps above the sidewalk, it was pleasant to sit down 
near the window and watch the people passing by. 
Across the street there was a blacksmith shop. I liked 
to listen to the ding, ding of the hammers beating in 
unison and we could see the sparks flying. Sometimes a 
bright, healthy, young face, all covered with grime, was 
pressed against the heavy grating of the blacksmith shop 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 187 

window. One day the young man saw me looking over 
and he grinned. Cherry Street is not a wide street and 
he probably saw my embarrassment for he threw his 
head back and laughed heartily. All these things were 
important when I was fifteen years old and we lived on 
Cherry Street. 

The first neighbour with whom we became acquainted 
in this house was the dressmaker who lived across the 
hall. Her husband was a carpenter. Whenever he was 
not working I would see him sitting at the window read- 
ing a book. One day when I went in to see the Raisens 
I found that the husband was out and the book was 
lying on the table. I had long been curious about it and 
now I took it up and sat down at the window. Of course 
it was in Yiddish. I began to spell out the words. I 
had not read since I came to this country and had almost 
forgotten how. But as I read line after line it became 
easier and easier and soon I forgot all about everything 
and did not hear Mrs. Raisen working at the machine, 
her three little ones romping about the room, the clatter- 
ing of the heavy trucks passing the window and the 
ding, ding from the blacksmith shop. I became aware 
of these things again only when I heard Mrs. Raisen 
saying, "Girl, you are blinding your eyes." Then I looked 
up and saw that night had come. 

I found from Mr. Raisen that these books could be 
borrowed from soda water stand keepers, if one left 
fifteen cents security and paid five cents for the reading 
of the book. I listened to all the details with discourage- 
ment. For when could I hope to have twenty cents saved ! 
Nevertheless I began to save, or rather, I determined to 
put away the very first cent I had. But in the meanwhile 
I watched out for Mr. Raisen's book. He rarely forgot 
to put it out of sight for he had three mischievous little 



188 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

children. But whenever I saw it on the table I would 
go in and read it. 

At last one night I brought home my first volume. I 
took the lamp out of the bracket, placed it on the table, 
and opened the book. I had told the stand keeper to 
give me anything as long as it was with vowels. For I 
had only learned to read the Hebrew print that had 
the vowels. These consisted in dots and lines printed 
under each letter. 

In the meantime the children gathered around me and 
mother came over with her sewing and looked at me 
disapprovingly, sadly, "What a child you are," her eyes 
seemed to say. "How little sense you have. If you had 

spent this money on nourishing food " And again, 

"True, you did not ask for the money, you saved it. But 
where did it come from?" 

I understood this as plainly as if she had uttered the 
words. Poor mother, she was often worried over how 
to live and save on our six or seven dollars and over my 
health. And so, partly with the hope of cheering her up 
a little and partly to draw her attention away from my- 
self and a possible scolding, I began to read aloud. In 
a few minutes I looked up and saw her stitching quickly 
on the little dress she was mending. I could see she 
was listening but the sad look had not left her eyes. But 
when again I looked up the little dress lay forgotten in 
her lap and on her face there was a healthy look of 
interest and curiosity. The only stories she had ever 
heard before were from the Bible. 

From that time many happy evenings were ours. 
Mother always listened reluctantly, as if she felt it were 
a weakness to be so interested. Sometimes she would 
rise suddenly during the most interesting part and go 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 189 

away into the dark kitchen. But soon I would catch her 
listening from the doorway. 

And I lived now in a wonderful world. One time I 
was a beautiful countess living unhappily in a palace, 
another time I was a beggar's daughter singing in the 
street. Of course we never drew more than one little 
book a week, about two hundred and fifty pages for five 
cents. But I got all I could out of it. I read it aloud, 
I reread it to myself and I lived it when I was not read- 
ing. Almost every book had a song or a poem. These 
I learned by heart, found appropriate melodies for them 
out of the great stock of Russian peasant songs that I 
knew, and when Aunt Masha and her friends came on a 
Saturday I would sing to them. Mother always seemed 
uneasy when she heard these songs, and sister would 
look at me with astonishment and her truthful eyes 
seemed to say, "Oh, how can you! ,, 

I did feel guilty but the next time they came I had a 
new song for them. 

One day when I went to change my book the stand- 
keeper looked over his three shelves of books, high over 
his stand, and said finally, "I don't believe I have an- 
other book with vowels." 

"No more books!" I pictured an impossible existence 
in our house without the joy of reading. "Look well," 
I begged him. 

He stood up on a high stool and began rummaging 
about on the top shelf. "Here," he said, "is the last one, 
and I don't think you will like it. It is a thick, clumsy 
volume." 

A thick volume! Could a book be too thick? And 
what did the clumsiness matter! 

"Let me see it," I said, controlling my eagerness. For 
I had learned that people were often charged according 



igo OUT OF THE SHADOW 

to the desire they showed for the article. I turned to 
the first page of the story and read the heading of the 
chapter: "I am born." 

Something in these three little words appealed to me 
more than anything I had yet read. I could not have 
told why, but perhaps it was the simplicity and the inti- 
mate tone of the first person. I had not yet read anything 
written in the first person. 

My eager fingers turned to the title page and I uttered 
the words half aloud, "David Copperneld. By Charles 
Dickens." 

"I'll take it," I said. I laid the five pennies on the zinc 
covered soda counter and walked away slowly, expecting 
and fearing to hear the standkeeper's voice calling after 
me and demanding an extra five cents because the book 
was so thick. But when the danger of that was passed I 
fairly ran home with my prize. 

What a happy two weeks we spent! We lived little 
David's life over with him. Mother cried when he and 
Peggotty bade each other farewell through the keyhole, 
and then she laughed, at her tears, remembering that it 
was "only a story." And as I sat in the shop, felling 
sleeve lining, I would go over in my mind what I had 
read the night before. With what joy I looked forward 
to the evening when after supper we would all gather 
around the lamp on the table and sister or I would read 
aloud while mother sewed and the little ones sat with 
their chins very near the table. For if there was any 
joy to be gotten out of anything they must have their 
share. And so they would sit blinking sleepily and try- 
ing hard to understand but finally they would fall asleep 
with their heads on the table. Then mother, sister and 
I would move closer to each other and I would read in a 
lower voice. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 191 

When we were through with David Copperfield we 
felt as if we had parted from a dear friend. We could 
not bear to read anything else for a whole week. 

The next book we drew was without vowels. Sister 
and I had never dreamed it would be so easy to learn to 
read it. In a week we read it as fluently as the other. And 
now reading material was not so limited. A flying news- 
paper in the street, a crumpled advertisement sheet, I would 
smooth out tenderly and carry off home, happy in the 
expectation of what was awaiting me. I tried to under- 
stand everything I read but if I could not, I read it any- 
way. For just to read became a necessity and a joy. 
There were so few joys. 



192 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XLII 

One night about this time when I came into the house 
I was shocked at what I saw. Father was sitting on a 
low box in the middle of the room. He was in his stock- 
ing feet, his elbows resting on his knees, his head bent 
between his hands. Sister stood near the lamp in the 
bracket, reading a letter and crying bitterly. My thought 
was of grandmother at once. I went over to sister and 
looked over her shoulder. After a lengthy and cere- 
monious greeting, it read : 

"Your mother is dead. But you should not grieve. 
You should be glad. For she suffered much in these 
two years." It was an old woman that wrote the letter 
and what she told of grandmother's suffering is too hor- 
rible to repeat. The letter closed with : "I only hope and 
pray that he who breaks every home, he to whom no bond 
is sacred, the Czar of Russia, may know at least for one 
year in his life the sorrow and loneliness she has known." 

It was also about this time that a man came from 
our part of the country and gave us news of grandfather. 
He was in Mintsk in a Home for the Aged. The man 
had seen him, and said that he was well but at times his 
mind was like that of a child. He spoke of his children 
in America and his eyes were full of tears. But soon 
he chuckled gleefully. "Brother," he said to the man, 
"come, I will show you something." He took him by the 
hand and led him to a cot standing in a corner. He 
looked around cautiously like a shy little squirrel and 
then took a tiny bundle in a red bandana from under the 
pillow. He patted the little bundle and smiled brightly 
at the man. "You see, brother," he whispered, "as long 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 193 

as I have this I have no fear of want." He untied the 
knot with his poor old trembling fingers and the man 
saw a few little lumps of sugar and a few crusts of bread 
covered with green mould. All his life the thought of 
want in his old age had been his one fear. 



194 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XLIII 

The warm days passed but my health did not improve. 
On the contrary, it grew worse and I worked less and 
less — a day in one shop, a half day in another, for I 
had no steady place now. Often after I had worked a 
morning in a shop the boss would pay me for the half 
day, and tell me he had no more work. I understood 
that I was not doing enough and it did not pay him to 
keep me. When I had the strength and the courage I 
would go to other shops and ask if they needed a feller 
hand. It did require courage to enter a shop for the 
people stared, my face was so pale. When I did not 
have the courage I went home and was glad to lie quite 
still on the couch. 

In the autumn I had to stay at home altogether. What 
little I had earned was badly missed. Winter was com- 
ing and none of us had even half warm enough clothing. 
So father decided that sister should leave school and 
take my place. 

She had just learned to read and write a little, and of 
course she could speak English. It was thought that she 
had made good progress in the short time, considering 
the drawback she had had, in not knowing the language. 
We all felt sad, mother particularly, that her education 
should end here. Sister herself took it in a way charac- 
teristic of her. Her days in school had been happy ones. 
She had been known and loved by teacher and pupils 
throughout the little Henry Street school. And like the 
rest of us she did not look upon "free schooling in Amer- 
ica" in a matter-of-fact way. She, a little Jewish girl 
from an out-of-the-way Russian village of which no one 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 195 

ever heard, was receiving an education! It seemed a 
wonderful privilege. But when she saw that this was not 
to be after all, she did not utter a single word of protest 
or complaint. 

On the first morning of going to the shop, for she was 
starting in as a finisher on buttonholes, she rose very 
early, as I had once done. I lay on the couch in the front 
room, which was my place now, and watched her. This 
morning reminded me of that first one when I left for 
the strange shop. Sister was about the same age, there 
were the same preparations, the same grey light in the 
room. The only difference was that now mother was 
here to put the thimble and scissors into her little coat 
pocket, and tuck the little bundle of lunch under her arm, 
and close the door after her, and then stand so still with 
her face pressed against it. 

I stayed in the house all day. I felt despondent. I 
often felt in the way. When night came or it was time 
for father to be home from work, I went out. I had 
begun to feel in the way when father was in the house. 
As the illness or semi-illness continued mother became 
even more tender and devoted. But father's sympathy 
waned. This illness was such a long, drawn-out affair. 
It had had no definite beginning and promised to have no 
end. And besides, he saw that I suffered no pain, I was 
merely pale and not over strong. What of that? He 
himself was not strong. He found sitting in the shop 
harder and harder as the years were passing. He had 
been working as a tailor since he had been twelve years 
old. And just now his eyes were troubling him. For 
he had inherited grandmother's weak eyes. And so he 
felt, no doubt, that just when I should have been a greater 
help to him I became a care and expense. 

Besides this there were other unpleasant features. For 



196 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

- 

people in my parents' circumstances it was not a usual 
thing to keep a daughter at home. And so, inquisitive 
relatives and neighbours began to ask why? Why was I 
staying at home ? What was the matter with me ? Why 
was I so pale ? My parents felt they must hide the truth 
even at the cost of lying, for I was growing up — and 
what man would marry a sick girl ! But it must not be 
thought that now we lived only in trouble. We had our 
joys too. They seem very trivial but they helped to make 
up our life. 

Father belonged to a society in which he was an active 
member. The men often came to our house to talk things 
over with him and he felt important and often offered 
our front room for committee meetings. Before they 
opened the meeting they always assured mother that they 
would not keep us up any later than ten o'clock. But 
when the time came they were so deep in discussion 
that they never even heard the clock strike the hour. I 
used to sit down in the doorway of the kitchen and front 
room from where I could see all their faces and listen 
to their heated arguments. Always it was a piece of 
burial ground that was the subject of discussion and 
when a member, or any one belonging to his family, died, 
whether the rest of the members should contribute an 
extra dollar to cover burial expenses, and whether as a 
society they should or should not employ a doctor and 
pay him out of the society fund. At twelve o'clock or 
even later they would at last break up with the question 
of the burial ground and the extra dollar and the doctor 
still unsettled. 

Then mother and I would go into the front room 
coughing and choking from the cigarette smoke, and open 
up the folding cots, and carry the sleeping children to 
bed. The two little ones often cried at being awakened 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 197 

to undress. But father, if he had succeeded in carrying 
a point and in the knowledge that he had served the 
society in giving the room, went to bed smiling. 

Sister was happy in a friendship she had formed. The 
little girl was the oldest in a family of boys. The mother 
was always sick. And this little woman of eleven went 
to school, where we heard she was remarkably bright. 
And between times she took care of the mother and the 
boys and the house. She went patiently, with her back a 
little bent, from task to task and was always sweet and 
bright. Sister made friends with her one Friday night 
when she sat with her little brothers on the iron steps of 
the tenement, telling them stories. And my mother, after 
visiting the sick woman, would often tell herself and 
us too, "Children, we must not sin. Indeed we have a 
great deal for which to be grateful." 

While I, having more time now, dreamed more, I 
rarely had a book to read, now that I was not working. 
But, as I lay on the couch with my eyes closed, I made up 
stories for myself. They were of the life I saw about 
me, with little variations to suit myself. Some of the 
stories were short, some were long and I continued them 
from day to day. Once or twice I tried to write the 
things. But the moment I had the pencil in my hand my 
mind became a blank. I did not know where to begin, 
what to say. And when I finally succeeded in writing a 
few sentences it seemed to have no meaning. "And yet," 
I wondered, "in my mind a few minutes before, they 
did have meaning." 

Often too I thought over religious questions that I 
heard or which came up in my mind. I was still religious 
but I could no longer accept my religion without ques- 
tion. And these questions perplexed me and I felt guilty 



198 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

that they should come up at all and tried to put them 
away from my mind. 

Now also that I had time I began to go to night school 
and sister came too. I only knew how to read a word 
here and there. I sat in the class and followed each girl 
that read, with my finger on the page. If I happened 
to lift my finger I could not find the place. Sister would 
have sat near me and helped me but I felt ashamed to 
let her help me because I was the longest in this country. 
She read well and made good progress. But I sat trem- 
bling with nervousness all evening. I could never learn 
to forget that there were people all about me. And the 
time I spent in waiting for the teacher to call on me to 
read I can only count among the greatest sufferings I 
ever had. I would sit with my hands lying cold in my 
lap and my face turning hot and cold by turns. Most 
of the time I was unable to follow, I was so upset. And 
when the teacher called on me at last and I stood up with 
my book in my hand I seemed to see nothing but a blank 
page. Then I would hear a queer sound like of some 
one sick. The next moment I was sitting down. And 
yet I could not bear to stay away. I had a feeling that 
the world was going on and I was being left behind. 
This feeling drove me on and I went to the class and 
learned painfully a word or two at a time. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 199 



XLIV 

One day when I was sixteen years old a neighbour 
came into our house. She glanced at me on the couch 
and at mother sewing at the window. 

"What!" she said, "is your daughter still ill?" Mother 
bent her head lower over her work but answered lightly, 
"Yes, but it is nothing." 

"You know," the neighbour smiled after a few mo- 
ments, "I think I know of a remedy." 

Mother looked up for the first time. "Yes ?" she asked. 

"Yes," the neighbour smiled again. She would not 
say what it was and went out with a mysterious nod and 
smile for each of us. 

In the evening after supper, two days later, while I 
was preparing to go out for a walk, mother said she had 
no sugar for the morning. She laid the money on the 
table and said with unusual quietness, "Sugar is fifteen 
cents a paper nearly everywhere but there is one store 
where you can get it for fourteen." 

"Where?" I asked. I was at the mirror combing out 
my hair and stood with my back toward the room. 

"It is on Broome Street near Market." 

I turned quickly but mother was already walking into 
the kitchen. I thought it very queer, but did not say 
anything. I braided my hair, put on my hat and coat, 
and ran out. I began to run at once, for I was always 
afraid of the cold. As I ran I thought again of my 
errand and wondered at it. True, we never stopped at 
any distance to get a thing a cent cheaper, but to go as 
far as this for a paper of sugar seemed extreme even 



200 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

for us. And mother's manner surprised me even more 
as I recalled it now. 

When I reached Broome Street I looked up at the 
numbers and found that I still had a distance to go. I 
walked leisurely now for I was no longer cold. An agree- 
ably warm sensation was tingling through my whole 
body and the air seemed sweet. I was also conscious 
of a vague happiness and wondered. There seemed so 
little cause. One hour before I had been so miserable. 
The cause seemed that father was irritable, mother sor- 
rowful, and the light in the room was dim, and I knew 
that the next day it would be the same, and the day 
after, and the day after that. 

I found the grocery a one-window store. A bell tinkled 
over the door as I entered. No one was in so I went 
and leaned on the wooden counter to wait. Presently a 
fair young man with a ruddy face and stooping shoulders 
came in from a door at the back. He asked mechanically 
what I wanted and pushed the paper of sugar across the 
counter with scarcely a glance at me. I saw a corner 
of a lump of sugar sticking out through the bag so I 
asked, "Will you please put this into another bag? I 
have quite a distance to go." 

He looked up quickly and stared at me for a moment. 
Then he took a bag and began slipping the sugar into it. 
The bag broke so he crumpled it up, threw it under the 
counter and took another one. 

"Where do you live ?" he asked, working with marked 
slowness and tearing this bag too. "On Cherry Street," 
I said. He was silent but I noticed that his face looked 
more animated than it had been. At last my sugar was 
safe in two bags, and he handed it to me instead of push- 
ing it across the counter as before. 

"How is it out ?" he asked, glancing at me shyly for 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 201 

the second time and then looking toward the door. With 
people that were shy I felt at ease, almost bold. So I 
answered pleasantly, "Fine! It is cold, but there is no 
wind." And now, since I had spoken to him I thought 
it would be rude not to say good night. As I was walk- 
ing toward the door I was aware that he stood still look- 
ing after me. It was only later when I recalled these de- 
tails that I realised I had noticed them. 

Again, about two days later my mother asked me 
hesitatingly and without looking at me, "Well, what do 
you think of that young man?" 

I looked at her in surprise. "What young man?" I 
asked. 

"The young man from the grocery store on Broome 
Street," she said. 

"I did not think of him. Why?" 

Then with great earnestness mother explained to me 
that the young man was a possible suitor and a very 
desirable one, that he was getting an excellent living out 
of the store and that he very much wished to become 
"further acquainted," and, a meeting had already been 
arranged for Saturday. 

I was bewildered by what had been happening. I was 
grown up, a young man was coming to see me ! I would 
soon be married perhaps! The thought "I am grown 
up!" came again and again. It seemed incredible. I 
remember late one night, perhaps it was that very first 
night, when it was still all through the house, I rose from 
the couch, took the tiny night lamp from the nail and 
tiptoed to the half length mirror hanging between the 
two windows. I held it up and looked at myself ear- 
nestly for a long minute. "So I am grown up," I thought. 

During the few days that followed there was a great 
hustle and bustle in our house. Our first furniture had 



202 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

long ago been broken up, and a second-hand couch for 
two dollars that had been added since, now stood 
on three legs. So mother brought forth the homespun 
linen sheet, which she had as a relic from home, and 
spread it over the couch. "When will there be a bet- 
ter time to use it than now ?" she said and smiled at me. 
And father went out and bought two straight back 
chairs and a rocker, and we were ready to receive the 
young man. 

He came Saturday about three o'clock accompanied by 
a middle-aged man who introduced himself as "the oldest 
uncle." I shrank behind my mother and a cousin who 
had been invited to be present to give her opinion of the 
young man. At last the first few minutes, the worst 
part, was over. We were all seated. Father and the 
uncle sat at the table opposite each other and at once 
began a lively conversation to which the rest of us sat 
and listened respectfully. 

When I felt more at ease I observed the young man. 
I felt as if I had known him a long time. It seemed quite 
natural that he should sit with his neck shrunk into his 
collar and keep his hat on like the two older men and 
be quite as old-fashioned as they were. Then in my mind 
arose the image of another young man. He was the 
imaginary companion of my childhood grown older. He 
was tall and dark and not at all shy. 

I sat thinking so until I noticed the uncle observing 
me from time to time and I became uneasy again. But 
I too observed him. I liked him. He reminded me of 
Mr. Peggotty from David Copperfield. He was a large, 
strong, ruddy-faced man with a hearty, frank manner. 
He was leaning on the table with his hands clasped in 
front of him and he looked right into my father's face 
as he talked. He was relating his experiences as a news- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 203 

dealer. At last he sat back in his chair. My heart be- 
gan to beat uncomfortably. 

"Now," he said, "supposing we talk of things nearer 
our hearts." I was aware that even the children avoided 
looking at me. 

"Tell me," the uncle asked in his frank blunt way, 
glancing at me and then looking at my father, "why do 
you want to marry off that girl? She is so young, and 
not at all homely. What is the haste?" There was a 
tone of suspicion in his voice as if he feared a bad 
bargain. 

There was a buzzing in my ears and I wanted to run 
away. Indistinctly I heard my parents answer something 
and at the same time I suddenly saw the young man 
standing before me and asking: "Will you come for a 
walk with me?" I rose quickly, went into the bedroom 
and stood with my face pressed against the clothes hang- 
ing on the wall. Then I came out dressed in my childish 
hat and coat and we went out. And now I heard him 
talk for the first time since I bought the sugar in his 
store. His tone was earnest, and a little eager, his ex- 
pressions, — we spoke Yiddish, of course, — were almost 
Biblically old-fashioned, as if he had just come from 
some pious Russian village instead of having been in 
America five years. He told me that he had three uncles. 
I recall these words spoken confidently but piously. 
"My uncles are all espoused and with the help of God 
they are making a living." I gathered that he wanted 
me to know, that as a member of this family he too felt 
confident of being able to make a living. He talked the 
whole while to the same effect. His tone became more 
eager and persuasive. From this and his looks and 
manner his thought of myself was very clear to me. 
I felt a little pleased, but that was all. 



204 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

When we came home we had cake and tea and then 
they went away. 

That evening and the next day my parents looked 
quietly excited and expectant. The next night, while we 
were at supper, a message came from the matchmaker 
saying that the young man and his family were "pleased" 
and would be happy at an "alliance." 

Father was so pleased at the news that his face became 
quite radiant. He sat back in his chair and laughed 
joyously. It appeared that he had not expected it. "A 
girl without a cent to her name," he said, quite lost in 
wonder. Mother too looked pleased, but she was not so 
humble. 

"Not every girl needs a dowry," she said. 

I could not understand why father was so happy. He 
looked at me. "And what do you say, Rahel ?" he asked. 

The question troubled me suddenly. Somehow I had 
never quite realised that this question would really be 
put to me and that I would have to answer it. I rose 
from the table but could find nothing to say. "Well," 
father said in an easy tone, as if he were quite sure of 
the outcome, "there is plenty of time. Think it over. 
Take until to-morrow night and decide." My mind was 
in a tumult. 

In the meantime the matchmaker practically lived in 
our house. He came in during the morning, he came 
in the afternoon and again at night when father was 
home. He would sit for hours singing the young man's 
praise, — his wealth, his business abilities and his char- 
acter. And soon he succeeded in making my parents 
feel that this was one chance in a lifetime. 

When next father asked me, "Well, what do you say?" 
I trembled. "I have not decided yet," I told him quietly. 




"Vlv C Oi/v< ; 



HE STOOD STIRRING THE CAN WITH A STICK. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 205 

He was patient but he did not look so at ease as the night 
before, nor so sure. 

"Do you want to see him again ?" he asked. 

I said: "No." 

He thought for a moment. "I don't see what you 
want," he said. "He is a nice quiet young man and the 
main thing, he is not a wage earner. The smallest busi- 
ness man is worth ten workingmen. Tell me definitely 
to-morrow night. We cannot keep the people waiting 
for an answer any longer. This is not child's play, you 
know." When father was out of hearing mother added 
sadly, by way of help perhaps, "It is true that you are 
young, but you see, father is poor and you are not 
strong !" 

I went into the bedroom and wept with my face buried 
in the pillows. "Why did I have to decide this? I had 
never been allowed to decide the smallest thing before — 
the shape of my shoes, the length of my dress." 

The next evening I could not bear to face father. I 
saw that I must answer him definitely and I did not 
know what to answer. When it grew dark it occurred 
to me to go out into the street. I could always think 
more clearly in the air and while walking. 

It was a mild, clear night and there was a half moon. 
I walked so I could see it ahead of me. It calmed me 
to watch it and soon my brain did clear a little and I 
was able to realise something of my situation. 

"Father is poor and I am not strong." These words 
had impressed themselves on my mind and now I caught 
at them. 

"It is clear then," I thought, "that I must marry. 
And if I did not marry this young man whom could I 
marry? A tailor?" At the thought of a tailor the young 
man rose in my estimation. I also saw an advantage in 






206 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

that he was a grocer. "My people could live near and 
get things at cost price, bread, butter, sugar, potatoes. 
It will be a great help." But on the other hand I could 
not picture myself living with the strange young man and 
his mother. I knew now that he had a mother ; she was 
blind. He was her only son and she would live with 
him then as now. 

It struck me how similar my fate was to my mother's. 
She too had married an only son, and his mother had 
been blind. And now I recalled many tragic incidents 
in my mother's early life. Grandmother had loved her 
son passionately and was often so jealous that though 
she had been a kind and extremely pious woman she 
did not scruple to talk to her son against his wife and 
influence him to unkind actions and speech. Mother 
would weep and rebel. "I'll never talk to her again," I 
would hear her say. But soon she would remember 
grandmother's affliction and she would forgive her. 

Would this mother too talk to her son against me? 
I realised that I was neither so good nor so patient as 
my mother. "I would not stand it," I thought, "I would 
run away. But, if I did not marry this young man, 
what then?" 

Again I saw our dimly lit home, father cross and irri- 
table, mother sorrowful, always the same with no change 
and no hope. And now it would be worse. For father 
would feel that I had had a chance to better things and 
did not do so. But is that all there is in looking forward 
to marriage? An uneasy fear — and what is love! 

When I reached home supper was already half over. 
I sat down at the foot of the table and mother gave me 
my soup. The children seemed to be sitting at the table 
more mannerly than usual and father spoke quietly of 
trivial things in the shop. He scarcely seemed to notice 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 207 

me. He was always afraid of making us children feel 
too important. But I knew that there was one thought 
only in every mind. My heart beat as if it would burst. 
I leaned against the table and sat looking into my plate 
and stirring and stirring my soup for I knew I could not 
lift my hand. 

At last I heard father lay down his spoon and push 
his chair away from the table a little. 

"Well," he asked in a "by the way" tone, "what have 
you decided ?" It grew so still, even the breathing seemed 
to have stopped. And in this stillness I heard myself 
say, "Yes." 

I did not look up. I knew that every face had grown 
brighter. It was pleasant to know that I was the cause. 
I had been nothing but a sorrow so long. 



PART FOUR 



PART FOUR 



XLV 



And now a new life began for us, and for the second 
time I became an important person. The children fairly 
strutted about and boasted about their "oldest sister." 
And father talked to the members of his society of the 
coming engagement. How happy his face looked and 
how cheerfully he spoke ! To him this was the beginning 
of a new life. He had scarcely ever known what it 
meant to be free from anxiety. First, from early child- 
hood it was the fear of the army where he would be 
compelled to violate the laws against God: "Thou shalt 
not kill" and the fear for the blind and helpless mother 
he would have to leave behind. In this fear he grew 
up to manhood. And then with blood money, borrowed 
and saved on bread and his mother's tears, he bought 
a false name. Then his life was in constant fear 
of human beings, often in fear of his own shadow. 
Then being found out, and all seeming lost, his 
escape to America, then the struggle of a stranger 
in a strange land, which led to only a hand-to- 
mouth existence, without any change, without hope of 
change. But now, he felt, at last things began to look 
bright. One child was already grown up. He was 
branching out, he was to be allied with a fine respectable 
family, with men of business. Now on a Saturday after- 
noon after his nap, he would not have to walk in the 
street aimlessly, he would go to visit his son-in-law. He 
would sit at a comfortable table, drink tea and talk busi- 

211 



212 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

ness. His opinion of business men was high. It was his 
dream some day to lay down his needle and thread and 
perhaps open a little candy store or a soda water stand. 
But up to this time it had been no more than a dream. 
For when could he hope to put away fifty or seventy- 
five dollars ! Now, however, with the prospect of having 
a son-in-law in business the dream looked nearer reality. 

And so he beamed at mother and teased her. "Hanah, 
you are going to have a son-in-law soon." Mother too 
looked happy but I did not find it so easy to under- 
stand her. Her manner to me reminded me of the 
time, four years before, when the ticket came for me 
to go to America. Her eyes followed me about as they 
did then. Often while she sat in a corner over some 
work I saw from the expression of her face and the 
occasional motions of her head and lips that she was 
arguing something out with herself, as was her habit, 
looking at it from every possible point of view. Often 
too her eyes were on my face in dumb inquiry. 

And I, at present, I found it easier to understand 
every one in my family than myself. My people were 
happy, home was cheerful, I received some new clothes. 
The choice was left entirely to me for the first time in 
my life. And I chose what I liked, pretty material for 
a dress and it was given away to a dressmaker to be 
made. I chose a pretty pair of shoes and saw that they 
were the right size. And when I put them on they looked 
so small and dainty after the others, and fitted so snugly, 
that when I walked I felt as if my feet scarcely touched 
the ground. And yet deep down in my heart I felt so 
troubled. Why? I could not have told. So passed the 
first week after I had said that little word, "Yes." 

Saturday the young man came. I still thought of 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 213 

him as the young man, and we went out to buy an en- 
gagement ring. We went to a jeweller he knew. 

I stood at the glass case and watched him try one little 
diamond ring after another on my finger. To my sur- 
prise the pleasure I felt in receiving the diamond ring 
was not as great as I had expected. He asked me to 
choose and I chose a very small stone in a simple setting. 
The ring was bought and left to be made smaller. And 
now I would have been glad to go home alone. But 
when we came outside he asked me to come and visit 
some of his relatives. I realised suddenly that I had 
duties now, new duties. In the meantime he entreated, 
"Please come! I have promised my youngest uncle. 
They expect us." So I went. 

This uncle had recently married. I found him a very 
agreeable man and his wife charming. She took me at 
once under her protection. Soon more relatives arrived 
and she introduced me as "Israel's bride." Some of 
the women exclaimed openly at my youthful appearance 
and the men slapped Israel on the back and winked at 
him. His face was flushed with pleasure. Soon we 
sat down at a feast of fruit, cake and tea. And as the 
relatives sat peeling their apples or oranges they became 
curious to know whether Israel's bride had any accom- 
plishments. "Can you sing?" they asked me. I said, 
"A little," and I sang. 

When it grew dark and I went to get my hat and coat 
the young aunt followed me into the bedroom. She took 
my face between her hands and looked into my eyes. "It 
is so strange," she said, "to hear a little thing like you 
singing these sad songs." 

Directly the next day my parents began to prepare 
for the engagement which was to be on the coming Sat- 
urday night. A great "crowd" was expected. Aunt 



214 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

Masha managed to procure the use of an empty loft in 
the new shops on Jefferson Street through the janitor 
whose daughter was her friend. And to this loft with 
parcels and bundles many excursions were made during 
the week by mother and the children or father, when he 
came home from work at night. No one looked so happy 
and excited as father. He invited all the members of the 
society, and their wives and children, and mother invited 
half of Cherry Street. Every one must come and par- 
ticipate in their happiness, no one must be overlooked or 
offended. Aunt Masha invited all her friends. Aunt 
Masha was not the rosy-cheeked girl she had been. But 
she looked contented. She listened and advised girls in 
their love affairs, and took part at engagements and 
weddings with an "elderly aunt" air. We all felt that 
she had settled herself down to a single life. But there 
were times when she would not talk to us and she looked 
morbid and cried for days and days. 

Her friends were four mature girls. They often 
came to our house for me to dress their hair, for which 
I seemed to have a knack. They praised me for it but 
otherwise they never took any notice of me. Now, how- 
ever, they looked at me curiously, and as I had once been 
envied for going to America I was envied now because 
I was going to be married. Not one of the girls had 
their families in this country, or a comfortable home. 
One spoke to me openly. She had been a pretty blonde 
girl when I came to this country, but now her face had 
no colour and she stooped as she walked. "You are 
very fortunate, Rahel," she said. "I am tired of the 
shop, I want something more than a folding cot for my 
home. ,, And she sighed and walked away from me 
with her shoulders drooping more than ever. 

When Saturday came there was a great deal of excite- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 215 

ment in our house. All the children had their heads 
washed and sister curled their hair and helped mother 
get dressed. The smallest boy, six years old now, sat 
crying with a swollen cheek and had to be comforted 
with sweets. And I walked about from room to room 
and was of no help to any one. As soon as it grew 
dark Aunt Masha and the girls came, and carried me 
off to a hairdresser, and as usual now I who had always 
been last everywhere was first. I sat down in the chair 
and my friends stood about me. My hair was care- 
fully brushed, braided and wound all about my head 
and sprinkled with gold tinsel. When I came home and 
put on my first long dress, and looked into the mirror 
I saw that I looked at least eighteen years old. And 
then it occurred to me that this was my day ! That per- 
haps I'd never have another such day, and the desire 
came to be happy this one night. 

I went to the hall early, for indeed the loft looked 
like a hall now. It was bright with lights and there 
were two long tables laden with fruits and candies 
prettily arranged in glass bowls and decorated with 
fringed red, white and blue papers and fancy paper 
napkins. Folding chairs stood along the walls and 
the floor was sprinkled with candle scraping for 
the dancing. And when the people began to arrive I 
saw that this was indeed my day. No one looked upon 
me as a child, every one was kind and attentive. Even 
the elderly people came up to shake hands with me. The 
blood began to beat rapidly in my veins and my 
heart throbbed with excitement. After the formal 
ceremony, when the plate was broken, and Israel slipped 
the little diamond ring on my finger, I refused to sit 
down next to him at the head of the table. I felt as if 
intoxicated. Instead I walked about, talked to the girls 



216 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

and flirted with the young men. Then I danced. I danced 
with the men, I danced with the girls, I danced until 
both families were alarmed and begged me to stop. I 
assured my mother in a whisper that I never felt in 
better health in my life and continued to dance. I saw 
that Israel was not looking very happy. He was sitting in 
a corner, looking neglected. It meant nothing to me. 
Once when I stopped for a few moments he came over 
and begged me to sit down. At the same time two young 
men came sliding up and asked me to dance. The two 
stood disputing and jesting. Each one claimed that he 
had been first. In the meantime a waltz began, a third 
young man was passing and I took his arm and went 
off laughing. 

But as the evening advanced I grew more and more 
tired and at last I felt quite limp. The guests were 
gone, Israel and his family were also gone, and the janitor 
turned out the lights on a room hazy with cigarette smoke 
and tables covered with fruit skins and crumpled paper 
napkins. We went out into the still, cold morning. I 
fell a little behind my people who were discussing the 
success of the party, and walked wearily, listening to 
the sound of my own footsteps and wondering, "And 
what will be to-morrow ?" 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 217 



XLVI 

About the middle of the week a message came from 
Israel's mother inviting me to come and spend a day and 
a night with them. I looked at mother, I had not yet 
gotten over the effects of the engagement night. I felt 
worn and looked paler than usual. But she asked me, 
"Will you wear your new dress?" So I knew that I 
was to go. The minute it was decided I was stirred with 
curiosity about Israel's home and his mother, whom I 
had not yet seen, for she had not been to the engage- 
ment. Because she was blind I expected to find her 
looking like grandmother, tall and frail, and with sweet 
pale face and hands. But soon I found that she was not 
at all like that. 

I found Israel in the store. He looked so pleased to 
see me and at once led me to the door in the back of the 
store and as he pushed it open I saw in the middle of 
the kitchen and right under the gas which was lit, a large 
strong looking woman in a brown dress and wig. "Mother, 
here is Ruth!" he said. His voice was full of excite- 
ment and she put out her hands and took mine. So we 
stood for a long minute. The light was on her face 
and I could see it working with emotion, and there was 
a look in it that I had often seen in grandmother's face 
when she wanted very much to see. After a little while 
Israel took my hat and coat and the mother walked 
straight to the table and drew out a chair for me. It was 
a surprise to me to watch her quick sure step. She sat 
near me and talked all afternoon. Her voice was 
strong, deep and monotonous; and as she talked almost 
without a stop it was like listening to a machine grinding 



218 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

steadily. She told me all about her brothers, Israel's 
uncles, their honesty and ability in business, and of their 
happy lives at home. She seemed to talk with a view to 
entertaining me. But I felt also that she wanted me to 
know the kind of a family I was coming into. Then she 
talked about Israel. She said that he was a good, dutiful 
son. I believed it. I could see from his manner, from 
the way he looked at her and from the way he listened to 
her, — for when there were no customers in the store he 
too came and listened, — that he was good to his mother. 

I gave her all my attention but when I grew tired I 
looked about. So this is where I am going to live, I 
thought. This room which was a kitchen, dining room 
and bedroom in one, was all I could see. But I also 
noticed a closed door right opposite the one leading 
into the store and a little dark window with iron bars 
high up near the ceiling in the wall on the right. This 
was the only window in the room, and it looked into 
the dark hall of the tenement. On the little window 
sill I noticed two books, and I promised myself to see 
soon what they were. 

Gradually, from talking about the uncles and her 
son, the mother led to the marriage. "You see," she said, 
with a wave of her large, brown strong hands, "I have 
everything that is necessary in a household. There will 
be no need to buy a thing." My heart sank when I heard 
this. I had dreamed of a new bright home. "And this 
is not all," the mother continued, "there is another room. 
Come, I'll show you." She rose and opened the door I 
had noticed. There was a current of chill, stale air and 
I followed her into a room where there was dim day- 
light. "When we moved in here," the mother kept on 
talking, "we did not bother fixing up." I could see that. 
All the furniture stood in the middle of the room. There 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 219 

was a couch, a bureau, some chairs and an ice box, and 
against one wall the pieces of a white iron bed. Every- 
thing was grey with dust and cobwebs hung from the 
ceiling. The two windows were long, narrow and barred 
with iron. It looked to me like a prison. I shivered and 
went to the door. "Are you going in ?" the mother asked. 
I said, "Yes, I am so cold." I could not keep my teeth 
from chattering. I could not picture the room except 
with the dust, the cobwebs and the iron barred windows, 
and the mother's deep monotonous voice as an accom- 
paniment. 

During the evening business was at a lull in the store 
so Israel was more in the house. He stood near the stove 
with his hands spread out for the warmth, and with a 
smile watched his mother moving about the room per- 
forming little duties here and there and still relating 
the merits of her relatives. He often glanced at me. 
He looked as if he too had something that he wanted to 
say. But he also looked as if it could wait, there was 
no need for hurry. We had not yet spoken since I had 
come. But I noticed, or, more correctly, felt that his 
manner toward me was different from what it had been 
before the engagement. It was more intimate though 
we had not seen each other since nor did we know each 
other any better. I felt uncomfortable. 

At last, when there was a pause in the mother's talk 
I asked Israel, "Do you read sometimes?" 

"Yes," he said slowly, "when I have nothing better 
to do." 

"What are those two books? May I see them?" 

He stood up on a chair to reach them, blew the dust 
from them and gave them to me. Then he too sat down 
at the table and watched me turn the pages. I felt hap- 



220 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

pier now and having the books to which to give m}' 
attention I also felt more at ease. 

The first book turned out to be one I had already read. 
I was delighted. It was like meeting a friend. And 
the thought that Israel had read the same book was a 
sort of link and made me feel more friendly toward him. 
So far we seemed to have had nothing in common, noth- 
ing to talk about. But now there was the book. I glanced 
at the pages here and there and asked enthusiastically 
what he thought of this or that part, and how he liked 
this or that character. He was still smiling but he merely 
answered "yes" or "no" to my questions. 

The second book was a translation from the Russian 
into Yiddish, partly letters, partly diary. I looked it 
through and was at once filled with a burning desire to 
read it. The intimate tone of the first person in which 
it was written made me feel as if that some one were 
actually talking to me. I could feel his presence. "Shall 
I read it aloud ?" I asked Israel. "No," he said, without 
any interest. "What is the use?" He even looked as if 
he would have liked me to put the book away. But the 
only time I put a book away at home was when I was 
forced to. And here I knew no one would even hint that 
I put it away so I took my advantage and read. But 
the thought that I was rude and that the boy felt hurt 
perhaps, made me feel uncomfortable. So every now and 
then I would look up, say a word, or smile at him. I 
could smile now, I felt so happy when I read. 

In this way the evening and the next morning passed. 
Late in the afternoon Israel hastened in from the store 
looking excited. "Ruth," he said eagerly, "will you come 
into the store for a minute? I want to introduce you 
to a customer of ours." I rose from the table, scarcely 
knowing what I did ; I was miserable in a moment. Meet- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 221 

ing strangers was a great hardship. And this seemed so 
unnecessary, merely a customer of Israel's. I could say 
I did not want to go. But that seemed like a child. And 
to say that I did not like to meet strangers was also im- 
possible. A person of that kind was thought a boor. 
Israel looked at me but only saw my unwillingness to 
go. He looked slightly annoyed and explained as if 
he were sorry that explanations should be necessary. 
"But she is our best and oldest customer, and she asked 
to meet you." This explanation made it still worse, though 
why I could not have told at the moment. His mother 
too joined him in explaining and urging. So I rose and 
followed him into the store. My cheeks were burning and 
I dreaded the light and the stranger's eyes. At that 
moment Israel was more of a stranger to me than he had 
been a little while before. I stopped at the counter right 
near the door in the back. Further than that I would 
not go and Israel had to call his customer to the back 
part. I saw a tall, dried out looking woman in black 
with sharp, dark eyes that looked me over at once. Israel 
introduced us. She smiled, I nodded. And now my 
only thought was to go back into the kitchen, when I 
saw Israel push a slip of paper and a pencil toward me 
and lift a basket of bags and bundles to the counter. 
"Will you put down these figures while I call them off?" 
he said. What was my trouble of a few minutes before 
compared to what I felt now? I never could add a row 
of figures correctly. And since I had come to this country 
I had scarcely even written any numbers. 

A sick feeling came over me with the shame that was 
awaiting me. I took the pencil and bent over the slip 
of paper and heard Israel call "10." Ten, I repeated to 
myself, looking at the paper blindly, and wondering, 
"Which comes first, the one or the nought ?" Ages seemed 



222 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

to pass since I had heard the number called. I put down 
something. "17" I heard Israel's voice again. And 
again I wondered which came first. How the blood beat 
in my temples! I decided to keep all the ones on one 
side, to the left. "23" Israel called. And now it seemed 
as if I must break down. In Yiddish many people read 
numbers like the script, from right to left, which would 
read three twenty although written (23). When I had 
been learning as a child it had been a great puzzle to me 
and now it bewildered me altogether. Suddenly it oc- 
curred to me that if Israel called the numbers in English 
it would be easier for me for at least some of them I 
could write as they sounded. He did and it was easier. 
So I stumbled on from number to number. Often I felt 
as if I must give up but still went on. At last I saw 
Israel put the last package into the basket. "Now, add 
it," he said. This was the hardest yet. Again I did not 
know from which side to begin, the right or left. But 
I added it somehow, and then I straightened up. "It is 
ninety-six cents," I said and stood holding the little piece 
of paper in my hand and looking at it. I would have 
given anything not to have to give it up. But Israel 
was holding his hand out for it and the woman's eyes 
were upon me. So I laid it in his hand and stood wait- 
ing. I thought he would go over it at once and show me 
the mistakes right before the woman. But he did not. 
He just folded it and put it into the basket. I felt grate- 
ful for that. 

The woman said good-bye, Israel took the basket on 
his arm and they went out. When the door closed behind 
them I leaned across the counter. Nearly all the strength 
of my body had gone in the effort. And as I waited I 
thought, "If Israel had known me a long, long time 
could he, would he have done this? Why did he do it 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 223 

at all? Was it to show the woman that he was not 
marrying an illiterate or was it to keep me a little longer 
in the store and give his customer a chance to see me? 
Had he been talking to her about me, or did he wish at 
once to begin breaking me into the business? 

The bell over the door rang and I straightened up. 
Israel came up smiling and said in his inoffensive way 
and yet with great earnestness, "There was a mistake." 
I opened my eyes wide in pretended surprise. 

"Really?" 

"Yes," he said mildly but with still greater earnest- 
ness. "It was even four cents more!" 

For a moment I could scarcely believe that I heard 
right. "Is that all I made a mistake in?" I thought, 
"four cents!" Then I looked at Israel, his earnestness 
struck me funny and I mimicked him a little. "Four 
cents more!" Then I laughed while he looked on puz- 
zled. I laughed and laughed and tears were running 
down my cheeks. "Oh, there is hope for me," I thought. 
"In time I can learn to add even with two people looking 



224 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



XLVII 

The next day was Friday and Israel kept his store 
closed in the evening. He came to our house about 
seven o'clock and showed us two little tickets which 
were still unfamiliar to my family and myself. "These 
are for the theatre," he said, "for to-night.' ' The children 
looked at me with bright eyes. "You will tell us all 
about it," they said, and mother looked quite excited as 
she helped me dress. I remembered Mr. Cohen's shop, 
and recalled what I had heard the men say about plays 
and actors. I thought, "Perhaps I'll see Jacob Adler in 
King Lear!" We walked to the theatre in silence. In- 
deed we were never anything else but silent. This was 
the second time I was out alone with him. The first 
time had been when we went to get the ring. Then, I 
merely felt awkward while walking with him. But now 
I felt nervous and miserable. The silence oppressed me 
and as we walked along, his sleeve, as if by design, kept 
coming in contact with mine, and I kept edging away, 
but very slowly so as not to hurt his feelings. For I 
was not sure it was by design that he brushed against my 
sleeve. In our seats in the balcony it was the same way. 
He was very attentive but chiefly with looks, and his 
elbow was on the arm of my seat. I pressed into the 
farthest corner and the edge of the arm cut into my 
back. I sat and could think of nothing but how to keep 
clear. Of the play I have a blurred picture of an angry 
king, dressed in scarlet and white, on a throne, and a 
throng of people. I knew the play was not King Lear. 

The walk home was again a silent one through the 
streets now almost deserted. I remember how glad 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 225 

I was when I caught sight of our tenement. I never re- 
membered it looking so nice as it did now in the pale 
light of the street lamp which stood right in front of it. 
The hall door as usual stood open and the light shone 
through the hall all the way to our door. I stopped in 
the doorway and Israel stopped on the stoop. I felt un- 
der obligation to him. I felt that I ought to say some- 
thing but could not think what. So I said good night and 
turned to go when he called "Ruth I" His voice sounded 
so muffled. I faced about and he came and stood near 
me. "I want one kiss/' he said. I felt panic-stricken. 

"Oh, I couldn't !" I said, "I couldn't possibly. Indeed 
I couldn't!" 

"But, we are engaged now," he said in a hurt tone as if 
he felt he were within his rights. Then it was, or had 
I been realising it little by little all along, that it flashed 
through my mind what married life may mean with a 
person for whom one does not care. I stepped backward 
toward the door repeating again and again, "I couldn't 
possibly. I am sorry but I couldn't," and then I knocked. 
Israel said good night and walked down the steps, and 
mother let me into the front room lit by the tiny night 
lamp. "How was it?" she whispered. I whined, "I am 
tired!" She tiptoed away meekly and I sat down on 
the couch and wondered how I was to live through the 
night. 

In the morning when mother came into the front room 
and looked at me she cried out, "My God, how you look ! 
Do you feel so sick? Why did you not call me?" 

"I am not sick," I said. Then I broke down. I told 
her that I could not marry Israel. I clung to her and 
begged her not to blame me. She spoke tenderly and 
tried to quiet me. The children gathered around the 
couch and father came in. I expected he would upbraid 



226 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

me. But he was as tender as mother who stood with 
her arms tight about me. "Hush! hush!" he said, "if 
you feel so unhappy you need not marry him." 

"And won't I be forced?" I asked. 

"You won't be forced." 

"Can no one force me?" 

There were tears in his eyes. "No one can force you." 

Still I kept asking it over and over again and laughed 
and cried hysterically. 

My mother helped me over to her own bed in the bed- 
room and I tried to rest. I lay facing the door and 
could see all the way through the kitchen into the front 
room where mother and father talked in whispers and 
the children walked about on tiptoes. I lay wondering 
what father would tell Israel. He would come to-day 
for this was Saturday and he kept his store closed. 

He came about one o'clock. I saw him stop for a 
moment with his back against the door and stand there 
almost smiling. My parents greeted him about as usual 
but more quietly. Soon I heard mother say still more 
quietly, "Ruth does not feel well." He was not at the door 
now and I could not see his face. But I heard him ask 
anxiously, "Did you have a doctor? Shall I call one?" 
Mother answered something. All this seemed to me un- 
necessary conversation. "Why doesn't father tell him?" 
I wondered. Suddenly a fear came over me. Perhaps 
father would not tell him after all. I remembered now 
that he had such a way of putting off doing a thing when 
we children wanted it done. And the more we wanted it 
the more reason he saw why it should be put off. 
"Wouldn't next day do or next week, what is the hurry? 
We must learn to be patient and wait." So I thought 
that now too he might put off telling Israel. He might 
even think that if he let it go for a while this little 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 227 

storm about my not wanting to marry would soon blow 
over and things would be as usual. I was in despair 
again. "What shall I do?" I wondered. Then it oc- 
curred to me to take the thing into my own hands. I 
was sorry I was not dressed but I could not stop to do 
it now. Not ten minutes longer could I bear to be en- 
gaged. I called to mother and asked her to tell Israel 
that I wanted to talk to him. Mother went slowly back 
to the front room. As he was coming in I could not see 
his face very distinctly for the light was at his back. But 
I could see that it looked anxious and was sorry, knowing 
that I would soon hurt him. He came and leaned up 
against the door post. He asked me too whether he 
should call a doctor. I answered something and then 
I was silent. I did not know where to begin or what to 
say. Suddenly I burst out that I did not want to get 
married and wept bitterly with my head in the pillow. I 
said I was sorry for the unpleasantness and the trouble 
but I would not get married. I would never marry at 
all. "But why ?" he asked finally. His voice sounded as 
if he did not take me seriously. A moment before I had 
decided not to tell him, to spare him the hurt. Now when 
I saw he did not take me seriously there was only one 
thought in my mind, to be free of the engagement. So I 
said, "Because I do not love you." "Oh," he said, in a 
matter of course tone, "you will love me after we are 
married." And then he gave me many instances of his 
uncles and his aunts and his mother. I was in despair. 
How could I impress it upon him that for me this thing 
was impossible? And then it flashed through my mind 
how I could make him see it in a moment. I sat up and 
in my eagerness I stretched out my hand and laid it on 
his sleeve and he came a step nearer. 

"Listen," I said, "you wanted to kiss me last night." 



228 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

I could see that he felt a little guilty. "That was all 
right," I said. "I can imagine that if I loved you it 
would have made me happy. But as it is, the very 
thought of it drives me mad." 

Even in that light I could see that his face changed 
colour and he stepped back and leaned heavily against the 
door. As I saw him weaken I quickly followed up my 
advantage. I took the little ring from under the pillow 
and pressed it into his hand. "Now go," I begged him. 
"I am so sorry, but please go, go!" And he went, and 
I sat and watched him; his step was unsteady and 
his back more bent than usual, he looked like an old man. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 229 



XLVIII 

That night a message came from Israel's mother. 
She said, "I pray that you may have a thousand bride- 
grooms but not one shall you marry. I wish you no 
other ill but this!" Mother cried bitterly and father, 
who had been so quiet, so silent all afternoon, went out 
into the street still without saying a word. Only now 
I really believed that the engagement was off. And now 
all my troubles seemed small. I rose and dressed in my 
old clothes. I did not think they looked so shabby and 
faded, nor were the shoes so clumsy and large. I was 
not sorry for what had happened. I was never sorry 
for any experience I had had. At the time when it was 
hard, I could not help grumbling but later I was even glad. 
This thing I knew ! I went to mother and tried to comfort 
her. I crept up to her mouse-fashion. We all loved 
fondling but we were not used to showing it. Mother 
looked at me sideways and said, "Go away, mouse !" 
But I saw the shadow of a smile in one corner of her 
mouth, so I pressed closer to her. "Don't cry," I said, 
"when you and father are old and the children are all 
married, you will be glad to have some one left at 
home." 

Later that night, when the children gathered around 
the lamp on the table to do their lessons for Monday I 
too sat down among them and as I watched them write I 
suddenly remembered the diary I had read in Israel's 
home. I took a sheet of paper and a pencil and wrote a 
few words, in Yiddish of course. Then I crossed them 
out and wrote again trying to improve them. So I kept 
rubbing and crossing out. But finally when I was at 



230 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

the bottom of the page a sentence stood clear which I 
translate now. "I feel new joy in life and in freedom." 
I often attempted to write about what I felt or thought 
or saw. Most of the time after I wrote a sentence and 
the meaning was not clear at once I grew despondent 
and tore it up. But sometimes I was patient and de- 
termined like to-night, and when I succeeded I felt ex- 
tremely happy and kept the bit of paper. I kept what 
I wrote that night and a few days later I copied it into 
a little penny note book. I was determined that I too 
would write a diary though I did not clearly know what 
a diary was. 

When next I wrote in the little book I had already been 
working two weeks. The shop in which I found myself 
now was a piece work shop, not of the better kind. The 
work was cheap, the prices low and the men scarcely 
lifted their heads except to crack jokes. Oh, those jokes ! 
I was older now and it was harder to sit among the men 
and listen. I translate what follows, the first sentence 
in the little book. "I hate the shop, I feel sick, I feel 
tired, I cannot see any meaning in life." This time I 
made a great effort to keep at work and I kept up as 
long as I was able to walk to the shop. Then again I lay 
on my back on the couch, and now it was as usual in 
our house. But now I did not care. I did not care about 
anything. All I wanted was to be left lying still. There 
were days when I scarcely felt any life, when I could not 
feel the couch under me. My body seemed to be sus- 
pended in the air and millions of specks of brown dust 
danced before me. 

One day as I lay so I felt a touch on my wrist. This 
touch had become familiar since I had been ill. It was 
a doctor's touch. I opened my eyes and saw a woman, 
a stranger, sitting beside the couch. Neither in looks nor 




THIS WAS A PIECE WORK SHOP. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 231 

in dress had I ever seen any one like her in our neigh- 
bourhood. She was also beautiful and distinguished. 

"How do you feel?" she asked me. Her lips smiled 
but her eyes remained almost sad. She spoke to mother 
in German, gave her a card and went away. I spelled 
out the printed name on the card, Lillian D. Wald, 265 
Henry Street. Again I translate from the little book, 
though it was a long, long while before I wrote what 
follows: "Miss Wald comes to our house, and a new 
world opens for us. We recommend to her all our neigh- 
bours who are in need. The children join clubs in the 
Nurses' Settlement and I spend a great deal of time there. 
Miss Wald and Miss Brewster treat me with affection- 
ate kindness. I am being fed up. I am to be sent to 
the country for health, for education.' ' 

The morning before I was to start Miss Wald herself 
went with me to get me a hat. We did not go to a mil- 
linery shop but what I now think must have been a sort 
of a class in the little Henry Street School. She asked 
for a hat that would stay well on my head in all kinds of 
weather. In the afternoon I washed all my clothing. 
How I worked ! Mother said I looked like the old Rahel. 
I went to bed and made her promise to call me early. 
But when she stood at the couch in the morning it was 
as though through a mist that I saw her face. Later in 
the day I saw even more indistinctly. First I saw Miss 
Wald moving about the room, then Miss Brewster. On 
the table there was a red flower in a glass of water and 
a little white unfamiliar bowl. Mother saw me looking 
at it and brought it to me. "You see," she said trying 
to interest me, "it is jelly and when you feel better 
you can have some." 

Still later the Settlement doctor sat at the couch and 
mother was weeping bitterly. 



232 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

In a week I felt well enough to go about again. But 
now the doctor and Miss Wald thought that I had better 
go to the hospital first and get quite strong. And so 
it was that I missed the opportunity of the education, for 
it never came again. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 233 



XLIX 

It was not an easy thing for my people to send me 
to the hospital. For the very word filled us with fear. 
How could a helpless sick person be trusted to strangers ! 
Besides, it was quite understood that in the hospital pa- 
tients were practised upon by hardened medical students 
and then neglected. Whenever we saw any one miserable, 
dirty, neglected, we would say, "He looks like a 'heg- 
dish' " (hospital). And so we saw our neighbours all 
about us borrow and pawn but keep their sick at home. 
And when once in a while we saw a person taken to the 
hospital we looked after him mournfully as if he were 
already carried to the burial grounds. It was also an 
open acknowledgment of the direst poverty. 

And so Miss Wald had a great deal of reasoning and 
persuading to do and my parents had a great deal to over- 
come to consent! 

Late one afternoon then, with a change of clothing in 
a little bundle under my arm and a letter from Miss 
Wald in my hand, I started out for the part of the city 
we called "uptown," as strange to me as if it were in 
a different country. And now a great experience was 
to be mine. Never again could I look upon the life I 
was leaving in the same way, for I was to have a glimpse 
into a different world. 

As I rode along in the Grand Street and Third Ave- 
nue surface cars I asked this one and that one about my 
destination and was glad to hear that people knew about 
the place. I felt a little scared, I did not know what I 
would find. At last I stood before the building of the 
Presbyterian Hospital and then before the clerk's desk. 



234 QUT OF THE SHADOW 

"Your name and address," he asked. I gave it. "Can 
your father pay?" I had never yet been confronted by 
this question and my face burned. After a moment I 
had to admit that he could not. 

"What does your father do ?" 

"A tailor." " 

"How much does he earn ?" 

"Eight dollars, sometimes ten." 

"How many are there in the family ?" 

"Six beside myself." 

"Take a seat, please." 

Soon a man came and I followed him through wide 
halls where our footsteps echoed. We went up in an 
elevator and I was taken into an immense room with 
two rows of white beds and in each bed a pale face. 
Then I saw a nurse, like the nurses in the Settlement, 
and I felt reassured at once. She led me to a chair at an 
empty bed, put two screens about me, said hurriedly 
and without looking at me, "Undress, please," and 
went away. I felt bewildered. "She could not have 
meant that," I thought and I sat still. At home the only 
time we went to bed was when we could not stand on our 
feet. But I was well now. I also realised that the nurse 
could come and go as she pleased and there was nothing 
but a screen between myself and all those faces that I 
saw in the beds. The more I thought over it the more 
impossible it seemed that I had caught the right "English 
words." But what did she mean? I sat and blamed my- 
self for not having been more attentive. The English 
spoken here and by the nurses in the Settlement was so 
different from the Yiddish English that I knew. But I 
soon forgot all about it as I looked around at the snow- 
white bed beside me and at the little table with a glass 
top and at the screens forming the walls of a small 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 235 

room. And I thought with joy, "This is going to be 
my room and these are my things." Over the bed 
there was also a large window which I claimed at once. 
The light from the setting sun was streaming in and 
the muslin walls of the tiny room were coloured rose. 
I was looking about me and out of the window and reality 
was slipping further and further away. Presently I saw 
as in a dream a small round toed boot push one side of 
the screen away a very little, and the nurse came in 
carrying a small tub of water. And when she saw me 
sitting there just as she had left me she put down the 
tub on the table, placed her hands on her hips and looked 
at me and sighed, and her eyes said very plainly: 
"Well ! What kind of a being is this anyway ?" 
Half an hour later I lay flat on my back, and my wet 
hair was spread out on a towel over the pillow. When 
the screen was taken away I saw that mine was the last 
bed in a row of ten, facing ten other beds. 

A few days later when the clock struck two, visitors 
began to come in. I saw that they were all Gentiles and 
mostly Americans. All the women wore hats; they 
came in quietly and their faces looked calm. I sat up and 
watched the door. I scarcely dared to hope that my 
mother would come, that she would be able to get away, 
but she did. She stopped in the doorway and looked 
eagerly from bed to bed. Her face was flushed and she 
wore her little shawl on her head. When she saw me she 
almost ran over the highly polished floor and I was afraid 
she would fall. All the people stared at her and then at 
both of us when she sat on my bed. Her face was cov- 
ered with perspiration. If I had had difficulty in finding 
my way to the hospital, what must the trip have been 
for her who could neither speak nor understand a word 
of English. 



236 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

I had wonderful things to tell her (and much she 
could see for herself) about the cleanliness and the care 
patients received and about the food which I thought fit 
for holidays, though I could not at once like it for our 
foods are more highly seasoned. The meat and juice 
which the doctor ordered I had not touched because it 
was "trafe" (meaning that the cattle had not been killed 
in accordance with the Jewish law). But mother told me 
that I must eat everything and get strong. "You are not 
here for pleasure," she said, "take it as you would medi- 
cine.' ' And so it was that I now had to break the vow 
I had made to myself when I came to this country, not 
to eat trafe meat. 

Mother went away happy and reassured, and I re- 
mained still happier than she. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 237 



The first person with whom I made friends (or rather, 
who tried to be friends with me), was the assistant house 
doctor. He was not at all good-looking but he was big 
and strong and good-natured. His small grey eyes 
twinkled merrily under his light bushy eyebrows. The 
first time he spoke to me was when he came to take a 
drop of blood from my finger. "We want to see," he 
said, "whether you have blood or water in your veins," 
and he laughed. "How do you feel?" 

"Fine !" I said. He gave my hand a slap and watched 
to see if it would get pink. "You will have to feel a great 
deal 'finer' before you can leave here," he said. He 
tightened his lips and nodded at me as much as to say, 
"You might as well make up your mind to it." I was not 
at all grieved to hear this. Indeed I should have been 
grieved if it were to be otherwise. For I already loved 
it here. The second time he came I had a book which 
my mother had brought me to read. He sat down on 
the edge of the bed, took up the book and looked at the 
first page, then he turned to the end, and he looked in 
the middle. His face became more and more perplexed. 
"I cannot read a word of it," he finally said. "What do 
you call this?" 

"It is Yiddish," I told him. 

"Read a little." I read. 

"Why !" he exclaimed, "It sounds like German." 

I tried to explain to him that Yiddish had many Ger- 
man words, though they were pronounced somewhat 
differently. I tried to explain it in English and I had 
to guess at many words. And so to make sure that it 



238 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

was clear I also explained it in German, for like every 
Jewish person I made some claim to being able to speak 
German. 

"What else can you speak?" The doctor was looking 
quite merry again. 

"Russian," I said, "in the peasant dialect of the vil- 
lage from which I come." 

He looked about the ward and asked the Russian word 
for table, chair, plant, window, bed. I told him and he 
tried to say each word after me. He had his mouth all 
screwed up and he pronounced the words almost like an 
infant. I could not help laughing and he laughed too. 
His hearty laugh sounded through the whole ward and 
many of the patients took it up and laughed with us, not 
knowing what it was all about. "What a merry people are 
the Americans," I thought. We took things more seri- 
ously. But very often he was serious too. He would 
sit on the edge of the bed with his arms folded and ask 
me to tell him about home and the shop. 

One day I saw him coming into the ward accompanied 
by a beautiful woman. She wore a bunch of violets 
tied with a purple cord. As they came along there was a 
sound like the rustling of leaves and the air about my bed 
became sweet. 

"Ruth," the doctor said, "I want to introduce you to 
a friend." 

I had never dreamed there was anything like her 
beauty, her blue-black hair, her blue-grey eyes, her teeth, 
her smile. But though I was so ignorant of life I under- 
stood at once, somehow, that much of this woman's 
beauty was due to the care she had received all her life, 
and her mother before her, and perhaps even her grand- 
mother. It was so clear that every root of her hair, 
almost, received special attention. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 239 

She came to see me often and brought me roses. Once 
she brought a big box full of pink ones with thick green 
rough looking stems. She laid a full blown flower on 
my lap and went to give the rest to the other patients. 
As she left my bed I wiped hot tears away. I had wanted 
a bud because it would last longer. But the next moment 
I thought of myself with contempt that it should mean 
so much to me. Most of the time she came accompanied 
only by the doctor ; once she brought a friend, a charming 
young girl of twenty-one who told me she had just come 
home from college. She plied me with eager questions, 
about home and the shop. Even if I had known how to 
express myself, what could I tell them? I felt ashamed 
before these women that seemed to know nothing that 
was ugly or evil. 

Very soon I had still another friend. At four o'clock 
in the afternoon a professor used to come in. He was 
tall, slender and bald. His small face was round and 
pink and so jolly that I would feel myself begin to grin 
the moment I caught sight of him or heard his voice. 
One afternoon he said, "I am going to bring a friend to 
see you. She is very unhappy; will you try and cheer 
her up ?" I said yes without knowing what I was saying, 
with all the doctors and nurses looking on and listening, 
for they were making their rounds. 

The next afternoon he came in with a young woman 
dressed in deep mourning. He introduced her and went 
away to join the troupe of doctors waiting for him at 
the first bed. She was as charming as my doctor's friend 
though not quite so handsome. But what I chiefly no- 
ticed and felt was her deep sorrow. Though she made 
an effort to appear cheerful I could see that she was 
weighed down by grief. It was in her eyes, in the ex- 
pression of her face, in her every motion, She told me 



240 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

that her mother had died recently and then she sat quite 
still looking about the ward. But I knew that she did 
not see the things at which she was looking. After a 
while she asked, "Would you like me to read to you?" 
I thought that perhaps in this way she would forget 
for a while, so I said quickly, "Yes." The next time she 
came she had a book with her. All I remember of it 
is the name, "Under the Red Robe." I was not in the 
main ward now but in the annex where there were only 
ten beds occupied by patients that were the least sick and 
had to remain long. Beside my bed there was a fine 
window facing Park Avenue. And at this window my 
friend sat down and read. Her voice was agreeable and 
she read steadily. I was thinking as I watched her face 
that she seemed very much interested, when suddenly the 
book slipped from her hands, she laid her head on my 
pillow and wept. I looked at her a moment, then moved 
my face close to hers and wept too. 

One day after she had gone the patients whispered to 
each other, and the nearest to me asked, "Do you 
know who that woman is ?" Of course I did not. "She is 
a daughter of one of the biggest millionaires in the 
United States. You are very fortunate to have such a 
friend." Then she said, "But it is wasted on you." She 
was a grey-haired woman with a toothless mouth and she 
mumbled to herself about "throwing pearls to the swine." 
But I thought, "What strange things happen in America, 
the daughter of a millionaire and I crying on one pil- 
low." Then I wondered why I was receiving so much 
attention. I did not know that the part of the city where 
I was living was called the East Side, or the Slums, or 
the Ghetto, and that the face of the East Side, or the 
Slums, or the Ghetto was still new and a curiosity to the 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 241 

people in this part of the city, a sight to cheer any un- 
happy person. 

But the daily life in the ward I found quite as inter- 
esting as my new friends. Having a fondness for "look- 
ing" and dreaming and, I am afraid to say, for idleness, 
the life in bed exactly suited me. I heard many of the 
patients complain about the food and the attendants and 
that they could not sleep, that life was dull and they 
longed to be out. But not I. I found every one kind 
and not a moment was dull or monotonous. There was 
so much to see and every minute something new seemed 
to happen. To begin with the early morning at five 
o'clock, when our little night nurse brought us each a 
basin of water and woke us to wash, I would see that 
her face looked paler than it had been in the evening, her 
cap a little askew, her apron not quite as fresh, and her 
smile not so bright. But she hurried, hurried to make up 
as many beds as possible before the day nurses were to 
come. She was so sweet, so sweet, this little nurse. There 
was such a warm touch in her small roughened hands. 
At seven o'clock the day nurses came in looking fresh 
and rested. I would watch each one going to her task 
with something of a soldier's regularity. If the break- 
fast happened to be up they came in at once carrying 
the trays of food. Then our ward, so quiet a minute be- 
fore, was filled with life. The doors swung back and 
forth, there was a clatter of dishes, a smell of coffee, and 
the dull pat-pat of the nurses' rubber soled shoes on 
the floor as they came tripping in, each carrying two 
trays, the upper resting on two cups. The good motherly 
nurses brought their trays in looking neat and the food 
was hot and tempting, while the careless or indifferent 
ones came straggling in late and the food was cold and 
spilled over. After breakfast there was a hustle and 



242 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

bustle of tidying up, and a sweeper came in. She was 
a big, stout woman with dark, angry eyes and a bang 
of oily iron-grey hair that curled all about her forehead. 
When she took a dislike to a patient she would bang the 
broom handle against the bed as she swept under it. 
I used to lie waiting and quivering at the thought of her 
coming. 

By nine o'clock not a safety pin was out of place, 
the patients lay back fresh and clean, and the doc- 
tors came in to make their rounds. I would prop 
myself up against my pillows, smooth my bed clothes, 
and watch them going from bed to bed. The nurses 
lined up on one side, the doctors on the other. They 
looked so different from us, the people I had been ac- 
customed to see all my life. They were tall, healthy men 
and women, so well dressed with such fine quiet man- 
ners! And I wondered how they lived outside of the 
hospital, what their homes were like. These two were 
Americans. All Gentile English-speaking people were 
Americans to me. These looked so different from our 
Americans on Cherry Street. Did they too hate the 
Jews ? Since I had been here I had not once been made 
to feel that there was any difference. And I, as I was 
growing to know and understand and love the people all 
about me, was losing my intense nationalism. 

On Monday afternoons a missionary used to come 
into our ward. She was dressed in black and I always 
thought of her as being long and narrow. Even her 
features were long and narrow. She would give out 
the Hymn Books and then stand in the doorway between 
the annex and the main ward and lead the singing. She 
had a loud, shrill voice that could be heard above the 
voices of the patients. After the singing as she collected 
her Hymn Books she talked to each of us. She would 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 243 

ask, "How do you feel?" But she never stopped to 
hear the answer. In the same breath she would begin to 
talk about Christ. The first time she bent her tall black 
form over my bed I felt very uncomfortable and when 
she began to talk about Christ I felt miserable. Finally 
I said, "I am a Jewess," and now I thought she would go 
away at once. But to my surprise she walked around to 
the other side of the bed and only now began to talk to 
me earnestly. My face began to burn. I saw that she 
wanted to convert me and I on the other hand thought it 
a sin even to listen to her. Finally I contrived to put my 
fingers into my ears and make it appear that I merely had 
my hands over them. And now I lay still and looked 
at her. Her lips moved rapidly and gradually a 
red spot appeared on each cheek, and a tiny white bead 
of foam worked itself into each corner of her mouth. 
After a few times I felt that she could never convert me 
and I no longer put my fingers into my ears. 

When mother came again I told her about everything 
else but I did not mention the missionary. I thought, 
"I am perfectly safe and they will only worry at home." 
But danger came from where I least expected it. 

Besides the missionary another religious person used 
to come into our ward. First he would come in the after- 
noon to distribute pamphlets. He was a quiet, elderly, 
distinguished looking man with longish silver white hair. 
He nodded to each patient as he laid the pamphlet on the 
bed within easy reach, and only stopped to talk to the 
elderly women. I noticed that he did not talk about 
religion at all. He asked them how they were. He was 
not smiling but his pale, quiet face looked kind and 
sympathetic. One day as he laid the magazine on my 
bed he stopped and glanced at my card. 

"Are you a Jewess?" he asked in his quiet way, look- 



244 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

ing from the card to my face. I said, "Yes." He smiled. 
"It is a good religion," he said earnestly and went 
on to the next bed. When had I ever heard any one 
praise our religion? The words had a strange effect on 
me. I sat up and watched him as long as he was in the 
ward. I thought, "to this man I would like to talk." At 
the end of the day when the sun was going down and we 
were finishing our supper, he would come again to say 
prayers. As he came in with his long, even stride his 
person invited peace and quiet. If a nurse were in the 
ward she would sit down for a moment and we patients 
handled the dishes less noisily. He would stop in the 
great doorway between the annex and the ward and turn 
the pages of his Bible slowly, very slowly, that we might 
have a chance to finish. Little by little it grew quiet, the 
last sounds came more and more softly, the shifting of 
trays, the tinkle of a spoon on a glass, a sigh. Then 
came his earnest mellow tone, low, yet filling every corner 
of the wards, "Our Father who art in Heaven." 

After he was gone I would lie quite still, still hearing 
his voice ; his words were on my lips. One day I sat up 
and took the Bible from the box in the bedstead and 
looked at it without opening it. This was the first time I 
had touched it and I felt guilty and uneasy. Then I 
thought, "How could it be a sin to know this man's re- 
ligion ?" and I opened it. There had always been a mys- 
tery about this Bible as well as about the people who read 
it. The mystery about the people was almost dissolved 
and now about the Book too I could see nothing mysteri- 
ous. It had a musty smell like any other book that was 
old and little used ; here and there the pages stuck together 
with a bit of food. I put it back into the box. The 
next day I took it out again, opened to the first page and 
picked out the words that I knew. Those that I could 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 245 

not read I spelled over to the next patient and she told 
me how to pronounce the words and the meaning. I 
read every day and soon I was able to read by myself. 
And as I began to understand it I became more and more 
interested. Finally I thought about it constantly. I 
wanted to understand the Christian religion. I was so 
eager to know and understand it, that though I felt so 
timid and sensitive I began to talk about it, ask questions, 
ask for explanations and soon I gave the impression that 
I wanted to become a Christian. One day my doctor's 
friend asked, "Ruth, do you really want to become a 
Christian ?" I looked at her. "Oh, no!" I said. She 
laughed merrily. "I thought not." 

No, I did not want to "become a Christian." And yet 
I felt dreadfully troubled. 

In the meantime daily life in the ward became even 
more interesting. After weeks and weeks in bed I was at 
last allowed up. And when I again learned to walk I 
enjoyed helping the nurses. I learned how to make 
beds beautifully. I used to bring the patients water. I 
combed their hair. I rubbed their bed-ridden backs with 
alcohol. I often remained for hours at a fever patient's 
bed and applied ice compresses. I was happy to learn all 
these things. I determined that if any one should be sick 
after I returned home, I would attend to them just as I 
saw the patients here attended. 

So three months passed. It was a bright day in June 
when I bade farewell to all my friends in the Presbyterian 
Hospital. When I came out of the building I looked up 
at the windows. I thought of the life to which I was 
going and a feeling of dread came over me. Then I 
remembered that it was three months since I had seen the 
children and I turned and walked quickly to the Third 
Avenue car. 



246 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LI 

Although almost five years had passed since I had 
started for America it was only now that I caught a 
glimpse of it. For though I was in America I had lived 
in practically the same environment which we brought 
from home. Of course there was a difference in our 
joys, in our sorrows, in our hardships, for after all this 
was a different country; but on the whole we were still 
in our village in Russia. A child that came to this coun- 
try and began to go to school had taken the first step 
into the New World. But the child that was put into 
the shop remained in the old environment with the old 
people, held back by the old traditions, held back by 
illiteracy. Often it was years before he could stir away 
from it, sometimes it would take a lifetime. Sometimes, 
too, it happened as in fairy tales, that a hand was held 
out to you and you were helped out. 

In my own case it was through the illness which had 
seemed such a misfortune that I had stirred out of 
Cherry Street. But now that I had had a glimpse of the 
New World, a revolution took place in my whole being. 
I was filled with a desire to get away from the whole 
old order of things. And I went groping about blindly, 
stumbling, suffering and making others suffer. And then 
through the experience, intelligence and understanding 
of other beings a little light came to me and I was able 
to see that the Old World was not all dull and the new 
not all glittering. And then I was able to stand between 
the two, with a hand in each. 

The first thing that I can recall after I came from 
the hospital, is a feeling of despondency. The rooms 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 247 

seemed smaller and dingier than they had been. In the 
evening the lamp burned more dimly. And there was 
a general look of hopelessness over everything. It was 
in every face, it was in every corner of our dull home 
as well as in all the other homes that I saw. It was 
in every sound that came in from the street, in every 
sigh that I heard in the house. I saw the years stretch- 
ing ahead of me, always the same, and I wept bitterly. 
I had never been so aware of it all. 

In the shop where I found work now it was as at 
home. As I looked at the men I could not help compar- 
ing them with those other men. To the little insinuating 
jokes and stories I listened now, not with resignation as 
before but with anger. "Why should this be? Why 
should they talk like that?" And I was filled with a 
blinding dislike for the whole class of tailors. 

But I did not give my entire thought to what I saw 
about me. As the days passed I became aware that I 
was waiting for something, for what I could scarcely 
say. Away in the back of my head there was this 
thought, "Surely this would not end here. Would this 
be all I would see of that other world outside of Cherry 
Street ?" And I waited from day to day. 

In the meantime I filled up the days at work with 
dreaming of that other life I had seen. I thought a good 
deal about that fine old man the minister. His words and 
his voice had remained fresh in my mind. Of course I 
must not breathe a word at home about him, about the 
New Testament. This necessity for secrecy soon led to 
other little secret thoughts and actions. It soon occurred 
to me, "Why should I not read the New Testament if 
I want to? Why should I not do anything I like? If 
four months ago father thought me old enough to get 
married, then I am certainly old enough now to decide 



248 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

things for myself." So I stopped consulting mother and 
began to do little things independently. It was not hard 
to do this for during the three months I had grown away 
from home a good deal and now with the thought of 
my experience in which they had no part, every day I 
was slipping away little by little. 

Mother noticed and her eyes looked troubled but I did 
not understand their meaning. Father had tightened the 
reins of authority and I only tried the harder to writhe 
myself free. My only thought now was of myself and 
the world outside of home and Cherry Street. But un- 
derneath all this perversity and selfishness I can see now, 
as I look back, a deep longing to see, to know, to 
understand. 

In the Settlement I was not so often now. Miss Wald 
saw that I came home looking well and at once found 
work. So she thought she would leave well enough 
alone. Besides, I had told her about my friends in the 
hospital, so perhaps she thought that she would stand 
aside and give the others a chance. 

The Settlement was, of course, included in my mind 
in that outside world of which I dreamed. But I felt 
too timid to go there often even on invitation without 
a "reason," some one of the reasons for which the Set- 
tlement seemed to be established. 

One day, however, when I was thinking of the New 
Testament, it occurred to me to go to the nurses and ask 
for it. Where would I get it if not from them? They 
were Gentiles and they would surely have it. And I 
started at once with that new something in me that 
was defiant of all the old life. 

I found Miss Brewster in the little basement and asked 
her for it timidly and with great uncertainty. For it was 
hard for a Jewish girl, brought up as I had been, even 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 249 

to utter the words, "I want to read the New Testament." 
The thought of becoming a Christian was nowhere in my 
mind, but this would be the first real step beyond the 
boundary. 

Miss Brewster looked at me silently and as if she did 
not quite understand and I felt still more uneasy under 
her observation and explained eagerly, "I want so to read 
it." She finally said, "I am afraid, Ruth dear, we can not 
give it to you. You see your father would think, 'True, 
the nurses have been kind to my daughter but they have 
led her away from our faith/ And that would never 
do for the Settlement. Do you see?" I was beginning 
to feel a little guilty. What she said, the way she said 
it and looked at me made me feel that I was wrong to 
act in secrecy. Again she observed me for a long mo- 
ment, then she put her arm around me and said pleas- 
antly, "Come!" We walked up the little staircase to 
the sitting rooms on the first floor. She put me into 
a deep chair and then she knelt before the bookcase. She 
hummed cheerfully as she looked from shelf to shelf, and 
I sat and watched her. Her every motion to me was 
new and interesting and charming. She represented the 
people I wanted to know, the new life I desired. 

She finally held out to me a tiny volume and said with 
a smile and in that rich voice of hers, "Here, Ruth, is a 
sweet love story, read it." And I took it away with me. 
The name of it I do not remember and though it was 
not the Bible, for the time being it satisfied me. Indeed 
just at present it did more than that, it filled me with 
joy, for, strange and stupid as it may seem, it had not 
occurred to me that now I could read anything. I felt 
so proud that I could read an English book that I carried 
it about with me in the street. I took it along to the 
shop. I became quite vain. Often as I looked about me 



2£0 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

while walking through the street it seemed to me that 
now I did not belong here. I did not feel a part of it 
all as I did formerly. But very soon something hap- 
pened which showed me that indeed it was here that 
I belonged. One day a letter came from my doctor's 
friend. This was the thing for which I had been waiting 
and this too was the first letter I had ever received. But 
I could not read it. The children could not read it either 
except a word here and there. They pored over the 
crisp blue paper while I stood over them anxiously and 
then they handed it back to me. "It is written in a 
'fancy* handwriting," they said. And then like any poor 
illiterate old woman I had to run to a drug store and 
ask a clerk to read my letter to me. I felt ashamed be- 
fore the clerk at not being able to read. I determined 
to try and learn a little from the children and again go 
to night school when winter came. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 251 



LII 

My education, if it can be so called, began in the fol- 
lowing manner and continued in the same painful 
unsystematic way all through the years. Self conscious- 
ness and timidity were a hindrance and I was always 
ashamed of showing my ignorance. But we were all 
ashamed of showing our ignorance. A girl who could 
not read and write would do anything to hide it. We 
were as much ashamed of it as we were of our poverty. 
Indeed, to show one was to show the other. They seemed 
inseparable. 

My education, then, began in this wise. An informal 
talk was to be given on Shakespeare at the Nurses' Set- 
tlement and Miss Wald or Miss Brewster, I do not 
remember which, urged me to come and I promised. 
The lecture was in the sitting room in the East Broadway 
house. From the doorway I saw about half a dozen 
women of the type that we looked upon as "teachers" 
sitting in easy chairs and discoursing in low tones. And 
at a little table, on which there was a shaded lamp, one 
woman sat with some papers before her. As I took in 
the atmosphere, so foreign to me, and the type of people, 
I was at once sorry that I had come and I glanced into 
the corners for an inconspicuous seat, when an over 
kind lady came over and fairly forced me into a chair 
at the little table, right opposite the lecturer, and put a 
volume into my hands. I felt the light full upon me. It 
was on my hands, it shone into my lap, it seemed to shine 
right into me, showing my ignorance. 

The evening passed in perfect misery and I heard little 
more than a buzzing of voices with every now and then 



252 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

such words as "Shakespeare," "plays," "new edition," 
"old edition," "a later edition," and then, "You can get it 
in the library." 

I breathed with relief only when I came out into the 
street. But by then I was glad that I had gone and glad 
that I had remained. And now as usual after it was 
all over the things I had seen and heard came back to 
me distinctly and I reflected over them. Shakespeare, 
this was an old friend. I remembered the men in Mr. 
Cohen's shop discussing Shakespeare's plays. Evidently 
Shakespeare wrote that book that had been in my lap. 
I felt proud of this new knowledge and I walked home 
with a feeling of superiority over myself of the day 
before. 

I do not know how but it was now that I found that 
there were such things as free libraries and I joined the 
one at the Educational Alliance. I felt greatly awed 
when I looked around from my place in the line to the 
librarians' desk and saw the shelves and shelves of books 
and the stream of people hastening in and out with books 
under their arms. Nevertheless I held my head high. 
Couldn't I read now? And if I could read the whole 
world of knowledge was open to me. So I imagined. 
When my turn came at the desk I said to the librarian, 
"Please give me the best thing that Shakespeare wrote." 
She looked at me questioningly. "Do you want his 
plays?" I reflected, the word play suddenly suggested 
to me entertainment and I wanted something serious. 
"Is that the best?" I asked. She shrugged and smiled 
a little. She was a pretty Jewish- American girl. "I don't 
know which is his best," she said. It surprised me to 
hear her acknowledge her ignorance so frankly. She 
asked again, "Do you want his life?" I thought the 
story of a person's life must be interesting, but no doubt 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 253 

it was hard to understand. Perhaps I had better begin 
with a play. 

"A play," I said. 

"Which ?" 

"Any." 

She brought me a volume and when I was out in the 
hall and alone I stopped and read the name slowly — 
"Julius Caesar." 

I pored and pored over my book for two weeks. I 
put it away and went to it again and tried to understand 
it. But all I could get out of it were words here and 
there. I could not get any meaning out of any of it. 
I felt heart sore and humiliated. I think it was then that 
I fully realised how little I knew, how ignorant I was. 
I decided to be guided by the librarian. Her frank 
acknowledgment that she did not know which of Shake- 
speare's plays was the best made a deep impression on 
me and I decided that I too would be frank with her. 

The next time I stood before her desk I said to her, 
"I can read just a little and I do not understand much. 
Will you give me a book? — any book — like for a child." 
She brought me "Little Women." 



254 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LIII 



Father did not take kindly to my reading. How 
could he! He saw that I took less and less interest in 
the home, that I was more dreamy, that I kept more to 
myself. Evidently reading and running about and lis- 
tening to "speeches," as he called it, was not doing me any 
good. But what father feared most was that now I was 
mingling so much with Gentiles and reading Gentile 
books, I would wander away from the Jewish faith. This 
fear caused great trouble and misunderstanding between 
us. Of that period this is the first outbreak I recall. 

One day my brother, the one who had once dreamed 
of becoming a great Rabbi, and who was still very re- 
ligious, on looking through my library book found the 
word Christ. At once he took the book to father and 
pointed out the offending word. Father became terribly 
angry. Then his fears were well founded. I must be 
reading about Christ ! He caught up the book and flung 
it out of the window. And when I looked out and saw 
the covers torn off and the pages lying scattered in the 
yard I turned into a perfect fury, as on one or two other 
occasions in my life. I wept aloud that I had a right to 
know, to learn, to understand. I wept bitterly that I was 
horribly ignorant, that I had been put into the world 
but had been denied a chance to learn. Father and 
mother stood staring at me. "Wild talk," they said. 
Surely! And no one was more surprised at it than I 
myself. I could not have told when these thoughts first 
began, whom I was blaming, who was to blame ! 

After this there were long periods when father and I 
did not talk to each other. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 255 

But little by little as the weeks were passing I was 
again becoming quieter and more submissive. Again my 
health was breaking down and at the end of two months 
I was almost in the same condition as before I left for 
the hospital and I was again falling into despondency 
and indifference. About this time the doctor from the 
hospital surprised us with a visit and when he saw that 
I was again run down he told me to come to the hos- 
pital and rest. "Come whenever you feel ill," he said. 
And so before long I was back once more. 

During the weeks when I had again grown so pale 
father was gentler and kinder to me. He was not home 
when I was starting off but mother and the children stood 
at the window and watched me go. Mother's face was 
so full of sorrow and I too wept. But this time I was 
glad to go from home. 



256 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LIV 



The winter was divided between the hospital and the 
shop. When I was well I worked; when I felt sick I 
went to the hospital. And here was my chance. I was 
hearing good English, I was reading and with the trait 
of my race for adaptability I was quickly learning the 
ways of this country. 

But at home and in the shop life became harder and 
harder. Once or twice I tried other work. I tried do- 
mestic service again. I went to take care of a baby and 
a house but my mistress found it more profitable to 
put me to sell newspapers at the newsstand which she 
kept. It was near a saloon in a wretched neighbourhood 
and I soon left it. The second place was good but here 
I had to light the fire on the Sabbath. Now I was no 
longer pious. I observed very few of the rites but there 
were some of the laws that I could not break. To obey 
them seemed bred in the bone. While I was in the hos- 
pital, of course, I ate the meat that was there but I was 
conscious all the time that I was eating trafe meat. And 
to touch fire on the Sabbath I could not bear. Then, too, 
besides, when I was leaving for this place of service 
mother begged me not to break the Sabbath. In her own 
words, "I would rather walk barefooted than that you 
should earn money while breaking the Sabbath." So 
I left this place too. 

Then I went to work for a tailor who was a member 
of father's society. He told us he was working in a suit 
establishment on Fifth Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street. 
The suits were valued from fifty dollars up and he needed 
a girl to help him with the lighter work, pinking ruffles, 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 257 

felling lining and so on. Here I went gladly. I thought, 
"It is uptown and they are working on silks." I pictured 
an ideal shop. But I soon found that it was the same 
thing. I saw finely fitted up offices, beautiful salesrooms 
and fitting rooms, but we, the tailors, were huddled to- 
gether into the dark basement. The men joked that we 
were pressed together like herring in a barrel. The 
tailor who sat next to me once said that he was sur- 
prised at his own decency. He wondered that he was 
not a worse animal than he was. I soon left the shop 
in disgust. 

One day when I was leaving the hospital, after a 
lengthy stay there, the doctor's friend said, "This will 
not do. I can't imagine what those places are like where 
you work that you get run down so quickly." She looked 
thoughtful for a few minutes, then she added, "I am 
going to find you work myself." She said this as though 
now she was going to settle the thing once and for all. 
She took me into her carriage and we started. I could 
not help smiling at this unusual and pleasant way of 
looking for a job. 

On the way she explained to me that she would take 
me to the establishment where she was having her suits 
made. She was a good customer and Mr. S. would 
surely find work for me among his tailors. The car- 
riage stopped before a fine brown-stone building. But 
when I looked out my heart sank. This was the place 
on Fifth Avenue where I had worked. It did not even 
occur to me to tell her about this shop. What was the 
use and what could I say to her? What one heard in 
a shop I felt was not to be talked about to anybody, espe- 
cially to one who knew nothing about shops. 

She left me in the carriage and went in to inquire 
while I sat and prayed that there might be no work for 



258 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

me. When she returned she said that there would be 
work for me in a few days. But I never went to this 
place, for little by little I became indifferent to work 
altogether, at least to the kind of work that was within 
my reach. What with the long periods of idleness after 
each job, the months of inactivity in the hospital, the 
natural apathy due to the illness, the miserable conditions 
in the shops, I lost all taste for work, I lost my pride of 
independence, I lost my spirit. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 259 



LV 

In the spring, a year from the time when I first went 
to the hospital, my health was poorer than ever and my 
friends there began to look upon me as a problem, and 
finally to send me to various institutions for recupera- 
tion. The illness had procured me that freedom from 
home for which I had longed. But though I was so free, 
now less than ever my destiny seemed in my own hands. 
The illness and my friends seemed to steer it and I did 
meekly whatever I was told. I asked no questions. I 
offered no resistance. 

At first, as to the hospital, I carried a change of cloth- 
ing wherever I went. But I soon realised that I did not 
need it. We were provided. In some of the institu- 
tions we wore blue, in some grey, in others checks or 
stripes. In some of the places my companions were old, 
in some young, in others mixed. And when I put on 
my wrapper I felt that I became a part of the rest of 
the dependents, a part of the house, a part of all that I 
saw about me. This troubled me, but little by little I 
became used to it. 



26o OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LVI 



When the warm weather came I was to go to a place 
in the country called White Birch Farm. I was in the 
hospital when the doctor's friend told me about it and 
also that she was sending out another girl, Irene, who 
was not strong and that I must be friends with her and 
take care of her. Then one day, just as I was leaving 
the hospital, I was called to the office to see the doctor. 
He said in his cheerful kind manner, "You are going to 
the country and I think this will take you to Grand 
Central, ,, and he pressed a half dollar into my hand. 
After this I neither saw nor heard and scarcely knew 
how I left the building. When I was outside I stood 
still. In my hand was the half dollar, the first direct 
gift of charity to myself. My face burned. "I can refuse 
it," I thought. "I can take it right back — but then, I must 
refuse everything else, the help, the going away" — and 
going away had become a necessity. I could no longer 
stand the mournful looks at home, and I was by now 
used to having a bed all to myself. When I reached 
home and told them that I was going away mother cried 
bitterly : What would be the end of all this going away, 
of staying away from my own people, what would it 
lead to? 

The next day at Grand Central I was met by a lady, 
with her was Irene and when we took our seats in the 
train I realised that I was going further away from 
home than I had yet been. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 261 



LVII 

White Birch Farm (there were no animals except 
a white bull dog and none of the ground was tilled) 
turned out to be a summer house run for needy city chil- 
dren sent in batches of about sixteen every two weeks. 
The house belonged to a doctor — who, I heard, was a 
very kind man. He bought the place for the purpose 
and he was supplying all the money to run it. The house, 
which was white, large, and had green shutters, stood 
close to the road. Across the road there was a barn, 
greyed by time and weather, and beyond it thirty acres 
of ground for the children to play on. On these grounds, 
down one hill and up another, there was a small wood 
they called the Grove and at the foot of it a brook ran. 
There was a dam and a good stretch of the water was 
deep enough for swimming and diving. 

The house was in charge of Miss Farly who brought 
us down. Besides her, and Irene and myself, there were 
two coloured women as help. The children had not yet 
begun to come. The house was being prepared for them. 
I was helping but had a good deal of time to myself and 
I walked about outside. I did not go far from the 
house. I felt troubled. There was the great quiet. The 
fields lay so still. Yet life seemed to be teeming and 
the air was filled with silent voices. 

Then it began to appear as though the things were 
coming out of a dream. It was all so strange yet 
familiar. 

In about three days I went further from the house 
and walked among the trees. I walked in among some 
low bushes. The leaves touched my face and I stood 



262 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

still. The quiet seemed to surround me and every now 
and then there was a twit, a rustle, and overhead the 
sky shone blue. There seemed to be all this and I alone 
with it. I felt my body quivering with strange feel- 
ings, strange thoughts came into my mind. 

In the house too it seemed as if I were living in a 
fairy tale. There was a dining room and a sitting room, 
and off the porch a little writing room. Upstairs there 
were bedrooms. Irene and I shared a small one. From 
the window in my corner I could see some fine old trees, 
a bit of road, a field, and in the distance the side of a 
house gleaming white. 

There was nothing of the "institution" about this place 
and I soon recovered my spirits as well as my health. 
My face became brown and rosy. The sun bleached my 
hair, and again I began to find pleasure in whatever 
work I did but that was also perhaps because I loved 
Miss Farly. I was often jealous of her, at which she 
laughed, scolded me and looked pleased. I worked well 
but it seemed to me that this summer I did little more 
than play — or else even work was play. 

I saw here modern, orderly, systematic housekeeping. 
There was time for everything, room for everything, 
money for everything that was necessary. The thought 
did not come to me that all this was possible because 
there was means. I only saw the facts. Miss Farly was 
a trained nurse and a woman of education. She could 
also do things that I had only seen men do, or that I had 
not seen done at all. She could paint; she could cal- 
cimine ; dressed in a linen walking skirt and a shirt waist, 
and a paper cap I would make for her, she would work 
for hours at a stretch, studying directions as she went 
along and her fair face was flushed with the exertion and 
the pleasure. She could do wonders with a grocery box, 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 263 

a few yards of cretonne and some brass-headed tacks. 
And I would be helping her. There again, then, was my 
chance. In the hospital I had learned how to take care 
of a sick person, of a sick room; and here I was learning 
something of modern housekeeping. Miss Farly also 
had excellent taste for shape, design and colour. And 
this too I was learning — or else, seeing things, I knew 
what I wanted. 

From the children I was learning their games. They 
were from the ages of seven to twelve; I was seventeen 
but now I too was twelve. I ran races with them. I 
played wolf and when the boys played baseball and were 
"short of men," they would magnanimously take in Irene 
and me and I was as happy as could be when I managed 
to make "a home run." We played in the grove, we 
swam in the brook — I learned how to swim and dive. 

I loved the spot near the brook. The trees here grew 
close, bending into an arch over the water. The sun pene- 
trated only in spots so that here it was greener and fresher 
than anywhere else and the air was sweet and moist 
and cool. The water over the dam fell with a rustle and 
the children's voices in the grove sounded far away. I 
loved to sit here on one of the rocks and dream. 

On rainy days and evenings we played in the basement. 
The walls here were rough and whitewashed. There 
was a large fireplace and a few benches. Of an 
evening then we would hang up some lanterns, make a 
good fire and draw up our seats. Some of the boys 
played on their harmonicas, the girls sang the latest 
songs and I sang Russian and Jewish ones. 

It was with reluctance and at a great deal of urging 
from Miss Farly that I began to sing. I expected 
laughter and ridicule from the children. And I was not 
wrong. But Miss Farly made an example of the first 



264 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

boy who tittered by sending him out of the room. After 
that it was quiet whenever I sang and little by little they 
became used to hearing me. 

The children were descendants of many nationalities, 
Irish, German, Italian, American. The Jews had not 
yet begun to come. They would only begin with me. 
Some of the children were rough, like the roughest on 
Cherry Street. Many of the children were very poor. 
When they sat down at the table it was evident 
that those who had been receiving little bread had also 
little manners. They ate greedily as if they would make 
up for the time when they had not had enough. Soon 
I also learned to tell which children had never seen the 
country before. These usually greeted the great out- 
doors with a whoop and a yell and a busy time began for 
Miss Farly and her two aid-de-camps, Irene and my- 
self. The boys began to run about wildly, scurrying over 
fences and ignoring all boundaries, climbing trees, tear- 
ing down whole limbs, filling their pockets with green 
apples, filling even their stockings and trying to smuggle 
them up to bed to take home. And the little girls would 
begin to pick hastily everything in sight, not stopping 
to distinguish between flowers and weeds and pulling all 
up by the roots. But after a day or two the boys began 
to play more quietly and the little girls would select their 
flowers and content themselves with few, knowing that 
the next day they could pick again. 

Sometimes as I watched them, I tried to picture our 
Cherry Street children scattered over the fields. And on 
the following summer I did see them there, and my own 
sister and brothers were among them. 

Miss Farly treated Irene and me very much like the 
rest of the children. She counted us in among them 
when asked how many there were at the house and we 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 265 

ate with them. But otherwise, in the house as well as 
out of doors we were her companions. Often then while 
the children played in the fields we three would sit 
on the piazza sewing, and Miss Farly would talk to us 
confidentially, particularly to me — for of Irene and my- 
self I was the more interested because to me it was all 
so new. I would perhaps lead up with some remark or 
question on the subject that still troubled me, religion, 
and she would explain to me as simply as possible many 
little things of Christianity, of the various denominations, 
and of the differences between them. And as for her, I 
don't think she had ever known any Jews intimately be- 
fore, so she was as curious about me and my people and 
our customs as I was about hers. I would explain to her 
as best I could our life as Jews and some of the laws, 
many of which seemed trivial on the surface but many of 
which had good reasons, either moral or physical. So 
we would converse ; nor did she make me feel that there 
was any difference because I was a Jewess. 

But twice the most serious question came up between 
us — the question that so often has agitated the whole 
world, that has often no doubt filled even the kindest 
Gentile heart with doubt and suspicion, that has made 
Jews all over the world band together and appeal to God 
and men against the false accusation — the question of 
the Jews' needing the blood of a Christian child for the 
Passover. This question was by no means unpopular 
at the time. Somewhere in Europe a child had been 
found murdered and a Jew was accused and was being 
tried for his life. 

The first time this came up among many other mat- 
ters, she merely wanted to hear my explanation of it; it 
was quite understood that she did not believe it. I felt 
my face flush. What could I explain? I could not ex- 



266 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

press myself well enough in English. To myself it was 
quite clear. All our laws tended to point against it. No 
Jew himself may kill even a fowl but must take it to the 
one certain man who has studied the laws in regard 
to it and made it his profession. There would perhaps 
be one such man in a whole town. Ten miles my little 
grandfather used to walk to have a rooster killed that 
we might have meat in honour of the Sabbath even if 
we had to go without it all the week. For weeks and 
weeks we would be without it altogether because it was 
inconvenient to go. And yet we would not kill! Even 
the little children knew that this law was necessary so 
that each individual might not become hardened to the 
habit of killing, also because a professional hand would 
save the animal unnecessary suffering. How could it be 
possible then that we needs must kill a little human child ! 

Within my own knowledge and remembrance there 

was just this . One warm afternoon in the spring 

when I was a child in our village, our little old great 
aunt from the next village came running. Her white 
close fitting cap was all awry on her head, her face was 
pale, her lips dry and covered with dust. "Children !" she 
cried at the door. "Fast ! fast all of you, large and small. 
In a town not far away Jewish blood is flowing like 
water. A Christian child has been found murdered and 
they say the Jews have killed it for the Passover." And 
she ran on to warn the one or two Jewish families in 
the next village and my mother shut the door care- 
fully and put the supper away for the morrow. 

The second time this question came up between Miss 
Farly and myself was years later. It was a cold evening 
in September, the children were all in bed and Miss 
Farly and I, perhaps Irene too, I do not recall, were 
in the sitting room. There was a good fire in the grate 






m 











HE AND MOTHER CARTED OVER THE FURNITURE ON A PUSH-CART. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 267 

and we felt friendly and congenial as we sat reading. 
Then, I don't remember how it happened, but Miss Farly 
picked up a large new volume bought recently I think, 
and began to read to me a poem right from the beginning 
of the book which appeared to be a sort of an introduc- 
tion or opening poem. It told of a garden where there 
was sunshine and flowers and where two little boys, 
neighbours, one fair, one dark, were playing. Into the 
garden the windows of the two neighbours opened. 
Through one window the fair-haired mother often looked 
out and saw the sunshine and the flowers and heard her 
child laughing. At the other window the dark-haired 
mother often stood. After this I remember only my 
impression. The fair-haired child disappeared. Its 
young blood was used as a sacrifice for the Passover. 
I have the impression of the mother's agony — of the 
garden still in bloom — of the sun shining — but only one 
little child playing, the dark one. 

It was a well written poem. It would touch any heart 
with pity and horror. 

When Miss Farly was through she sat quite still, keep- 
ing her eyes on the page. Her face was flushed. After 
a moment she said, without lifting her eyes, and her 
voice was quiet and strange with controlled emotion, 
"This might have been a custom you know — Perhaps it 
is not a custom of all Jews — The children would not be 
apt to know about it." I was dumb with horror and was 
silent. What could I say? After all the years of her 
knowing me so intimately what could I say ! 

That night Miss Farly and Irene and the two coloured 
women and all the children were together and I felt 
alone, a stranger in the house that had been a home to 
me. In that hour I longed for my own people whose 
hearts I knew. 



268 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

But after all we were living in the nineteenth century. 
And so in a day or two all was as usual. I gave her my 
affection and she was glad of it and she seemed as fond 
of me as she was fond of Irene. 

So that first Summer passed and the month of Sep- 
tember came. I thought this month the most glorious 
of the whole summer with its golden rods and the trees 
and the little creepers along the stone walls, turning 
scarlet, the brisk walks on crisp days, the daily dip in the 
brook, the sting of the cold water and then the feeling 
of sweet cleanliness. And indoors in the evening there 
were the open fires, the harmonica music, the dances, the 
songs. And when the children were gone to bed the 
pleasant chat with Miss Farly in the pleasant warmth 
of the room scented with the odour of sweet fern drying 
on the hearth. 

Then a chilly day came. The last batch of the children 
were with us. Miss Farly began to pack away little 
bundles for the winter and from home a letter came ask- 
ing me whether I knew that the Day of Atonement was 
approaching. Yes, I knew. 

Then for a day or two again new life, like the breath 
of midsummer, swept through the house. Word came 
that the doctor, who had just arrived from Europe, 
was coming to spend a day or two with us. So I was 
to see the man who so generously had been supplying this 
family of twenty people for three months. 

For a day we cleaned and polished and then we were 
ready to receive him. He drove up from New Haven 
late one afternoon. And I saw from where we had 
gathered near the road to meet him, a mature, well-built, 
handsome man such as I had learned by now to asso- 
ciate with the professional type — "like the doctors in the 
hospital." He sat still for a moment with the reins in 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 269 

his hand as if he were tired and the picture of us suited 
him and he wished to hold it for a moment. He smiled 
at the whole group of us. His face was all kindness and 
gentleness and in his eyes there was a look of childlike 
inquiry which a little later I understood was due to im- 
perfect hearing. His gentleness showed itself in his 
every act, the way he handed the reins to a boy who came 
to take the horse, in his greeting of Miss Farly and 
Irene, in the courtesy he showed the little ones who after 
staring at him for a minute, began to sidle up to him 
shyly. Mathilda, the cook, came to take the ice-cream 
he had brought, which stood in the tub packed with salt 
and ice and was very heavy, and he hastened to help her. 
When a little later I came into the kitchen for something 
Mathilda said to me, "Ruth, does you know a gentleman 
when you sees one ?" I was puzzled for a moment. Then 
I understood. The doctor had helped her as he would 
have any other woman, regardless of her colour! 

He stayed with us two days. During the day he came 
walking with us, and in the evening, when we hung up 
our lanterns in the basement and laid a good fire, he sat 
on the bench among the children and attended with the 
greatest interest to our performances, and we all dis- 
tinguished ourselves. The little Italian boy who per- 
formed acrobatic stunts was more like an eel than ever 
and the boy who played on the harmonica and who, his 
admirers assured us, was so musical that he could play 
on the piano alike with his hands or toes, this time per- 
formed on the harmonica with his nose. Irene led the 
Virginia reel and Miss Farly made me sing my songs. 
The doctor applauded and laughed heartily and Miss 
Farly, who often had to suppress the boys' shouting and 
stamping, whispered aside with a smile that the doctor 
made more noise than any of the children. 



270 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

When he was going away he thanked the children. He 
said with his kind smile that he had had a very nice 
time; he said it as if he were the guest and we were 
his hosts. 

And when I went home I knew that the next summer 
I would come again. 



PART FIVE 



PART FIVE 



LVIII 



It was hard to get used to the old life again when I 
came home. It was all stranger than ever, the home, my 
people; their ways. The children's faces looked lean and 
a little pale in spite of the sunburn from running about in 
the streets. Our couch now stood supported by a grocery 
box; the kitchen looked like nothing more than a black 
hole; the meals were chance and meagre — oatmeal gruel 
for dinner. I had good teeth and digestion and I craved 
substantial food, meat and potatoes. I craved variety. 

Once when I had first met Miss Wald, and was feeling 
downcast as I was leaving the Settlement to go home, 
she urged me to tell her the cause. But I did not know 
what to tell her, how to put our dull existence into words. 
She was thoughtful for a moment; then she gave me 
some money and said with great earnestness, "Will you 
do something for me ? Will you go and buy a good, good 
supper, you all ?" I had wondered then what a meal had 
to do with one's outlook on life. I knew better now. 

In the shop where I found work soon I felt more and 
more disgusted with conditions. I found the life almost 
impossible. My sister and I were working together in a 
large new loft. Half of it was occupied by cloaks and 
the other half by a contractor of skirts and capes. Sister 
and I were working on the skirts and capes. There were 
seven of us at the finishers' little table, besides sister and 
myself two other girls and three men. The room was 
not bad to work in, for there was plenty of light and 

273 



274 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

though the table was small those of us who did not 
mind stretching out for the scissors and thread could 
sit a little distance away and so have more space. But it 
was in other ways that life was made impossible. There 
was one man in the shop, the designer and sample maker 
of the cloaks, to whom the other men looked up. He 
wore a white collar and a coat at work and thought him- 
self clever and witty. Whenever he was not busy he 
would come and amuse himself by telling obscene stories 
and jokes. He did not like me, for when I had first 
come I had managed to gather courage to ask the boss 
whether we girls could not sit at a separate table. The 
news of this unusual request soon spread and I began 
to be looked upon as one who put on airs. "The tailors 
were not good enough for her to sit with." One asked 
me: "Do you expect to make the world over?'* So it 
was quite understood that here was a girl who must be 
downed and the designer, soon learning what I was most 
sensitive about, sought to do it with his jokes and stories. 
And whenever I saw him coming the blood in my temples 
would begin to beat like a hammer. 

One Friday he came, placed himself where he could see 
my face, and began in his leisurely way, sure of being 
listened to — "I was at a wedding last night." There was 
a burst of laughter. The men foresaw what was com- 
ing. And he, encouraged by the effect he was making, 
continued after a moment of significant silence. He 
talked as he had never talked before. He talked of the 
most intimate relations of married people in a way that 
made even the men exclaim and curse him while they 
laughed. We girls as usual sat with our heads hanging, 
and I was aware that sister's face almost touched the 
work in her lap. His eyes were on my face and they 
were hurting me. I was thinking that I could not even 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 275 

hide by merely pretending not to hear as the others did. 
Suddenly a feeling of rage shook me. "Why did we 
pretend ? Did pretending cleanse our minds from the 
filth thrown into them?" Then I felt that if I could only 
stand up, if I could only stop pretending at this moment! 
I could never quite be a part of the filth I had absorbed. 
The blood beat so in my head that I was half blinded at 
the thought of showing myself so openly. Then I rose, 
and scarcely knowing what I did, I flung the cape from 
me; its purple silk lining caught on a nail, in the wall 
opposite, and hung there — and I cried to them half 
sobbing, "You have made life bitter for me. I pray God 
that rather than that I should have to go into a tailor 
shop again I may meet my death on my way home." All 
this seemed to have taken a long, long time and I gradu- 
ally realised that it was very still in our corner of the shop 
and that now it was the men who sat with their heads 
hung and sister was standing close to me. I took my 
coat, gave her her little shawl, and we went out. In the 
half -dark hall her face as she turned it up to me was 
pale and her lips trembled. "You go home," she said. 
"But I am not going. It is not as hard for me because 
the men think I am too young to understand." And I 
could not make her go with me. She would not lose the 
half day, she would not lose the place. And she went 
back into the shop and I went down into the street. 

I walked away from the building and turned and 
looked at it. I was leaving the shop! All sweatshops! 
When the idea had come to me I could not have told but 
the thought of going to look for a job in another sweat- 
shop was somehow out of the question. 

I sauntered along through the street. What now? 
Housework was the only thing left to me. I shrank 
from it. My experience had showed me what my life 



276 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

might mean as a servant, a drudge in some one's dark 
kitchen, sleeping on chairs, eating at the washtub (since 
the Corloves I had learned that eating at the washtub 
was the general rule), being looked down upon as an 
inferior for whom anything was good enough. A year 
or two of this and I would be coarser and cruder, the life 
would grow upon me, I would lose all sensitiveness, I 
would cease to care. 

Suddenly I wondered why I should not go and talk 
to Miss Wald about the shop. I had confessed to her 
about so many other difficulties, our own and those of 
our neighbours, and she had always helped us out. 
Perhaps she could help here too. We had come to feel 
that there was nothing she could not do. But the next 
moment I thought with shame of letting Miss Wald know 
to what I had been listening in the shop, of letting her 
find out what my mind had been fed on. "But my little 
sister is sitting there and listening and I am ashamed to 
talk to Miss Wald — another woman !" 

During the next night and day I fought it out with 
myself. Beside the sense of shame there was the ob- 
stacle of not being able to express myself well enough 
in English. It was so easy to be misunderstood and mis- 
construed. People, busy people, listened to your stut- 
tering and blundering, and finally brushed you aside. 
And this would be particularly hard to tell. However, 
I was sure of one thing, that Miss Wald would listen to 
me patiently and try to get to the bottom of what I was 
saying. But would she think it possible? Would she be- 
lieve me ? Or perhaps this thing that appears so horrible 
to me is not so horrible after all. 

Sunday morning at ten o'clock I started for the Set- 
tlement. Miss Wald was not yet down, she had worked 
hard the day before and had been up late; would I go 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 277 

up to her room? I found her mother with her and an- 
other woman. Miss Wald moved a chair for me near 
to her couch and introduced me. At the sight of the 
strangers my mind became altogether confused and I 
heard their voices as though in a dream. I heard her 

mother ask: "Is Miss French ?" Miss Wald 

laughed. "Why, because she is blonde?" So the French 
are dark, I thought. My mind fastened on this as though 
it were very important and I kept thinking, "So the 
French are dark!" Then I thought that the strangers 
must be wondering why I was there. The thought also 
came that I could still go without saying anything about 
the shop. But suddenly I leaned over and whispered to 
Miss Wald that I must see her alone. She glanced at me 
quickly, laid her hand on mine in my lap and pressed 
it affectionately as she talked to her visitors. 

At last they were gone. They seemed to have gone 
quite suddenly. What happened after that I could never 
remember except a look of horror in Miss Wald's face 
and the words, "Why, Ruth ! they always told me — they 
assured me that — Oh, that place is not fit to work in." 



278 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LIX 



Monday morning at eight o'clock I went to the Nurses' 
Settlement. As the outcome of my confession to Miss 
Wald, I was to learn how to make shirtwaists in their 
little shop. 

And now I was to know Miss Ann O'There, the 
woman who made a great difference in my life. The 
shop was on the top floor in the East Broadway House. 
To get to it one had to pass a gas-lit anteroom. I 
climbed the stairs and stopped before this room. My 
heart beat violently. I was entering on a new life. What 
was there for me now? As I opened the door I was 
surprised, then delighted. Before a large table a woman 
stood, cutting. I had already met her and she had made 
a deep impression on me, and now when I saw her I 
knew at once that she was my "boss." 

A short time before this she had come to cut out gym 
suits for the gym class to which I belonged, and show us 
girls how to make them. She had noticed me because I 
could baste faster than any other girl. So I basted still 
faster and observed her. I saw that her ways were so 
gentle and quiet and she bent over each girl as if she 
had known her a long time. The suits were made in two 
or three Friday nights, and the last night she came down 
stairs with a group of us girls, and as she was bidding us 
good-night I watched her with regret. Then I saw her 
glance at me and I was sure she would come and talk 
to me. She did. 

"Where do you live ?" she asked. When I told her she 
slipped her arm through mine and walked with me a 
little ways. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 279 

I had made up my mind that she belonged to a family 
that were rich and accomplished. 

"How then could she be so splendid ?" 

She learned how to sew, perhaps, that she might be 
able to teach girls. Then I learned from some one in 
the Settlement that she was a working woman, of work- 
ing people, and a champion of labour. 

This morning she greeted me in her quiet gentle way. 
Then she opened the door and we went into a little 
room where three girls were bending over sewing ma- 
chines. 

"This is Miss ," she said, and I was amazed. This 

was like coming to a sociable and not a shop in which to 
work. 

She gave me a seat and showed me how to make 
buttonholes in a scrap of blue gingham. 

Many times that day she came to look at my button- 
holes. Her long slim hands touched mine tenderly, her 
eyes were saying kind things. I could scarcely believe 
that I was not dreaming. Nevertheless I felt discour- 
aged. For years I had been working for money and now 
I was sewing on rags! 

The little shop turned out to be more and more like 
a shop in a dream. I was reading at the time a book 
translated from the Russian called, "What Is to Be Done, 
or The Vital Question," by Cherneshefsky. In this book 
there was an ideal sewing shop and I felt as if our little 
shop too was out of a story. 

We all sat in a group in the centre of the little attic 
room where the best light fell. On my right there was 
a shelf with some materials, on the left was the door 
and behind it a little gas stove which we used at lunch 
time. 

The older of the three girls we consulted in regard to 



280 OUT OF THE SHADOW ,. 

the work when Miss O'There was not in. Then there 
was Margaret, who was fifteen. She was tall and slim 
and pretty and her grey eyes were bright with fun and 
laughter. She had never yet worked anywhere. Fan 
was a Jewish- American girl of sixteen. She had come 
from the sweatshop, her life at home was hard, and she 
worked as if she had never had time to learn anything 
right. She read greedily, even in the street as she walked 
to and from work, and she knew how to drive a bar- 
gain. Her people were in dire poverty. Perhaps it 
was this that taught her the art. At any rate it would 
take a clever pushcart pedlar to get the best of Fan. 

After a few days a machine came for me and I was 
taught how to make shirt waists. And now while I was 
learning how to make a shirt waist I was also learning 
something of the meaning of things or many things that 
had seemed without meaning. Miss O'There took my 
measure and said I was to be her shirt waist model. The 
fitting room was a few steps below, where everything 
was covered with blue denim and we called it the "little 
blue room. ,, And in this room, with her mouth full of 
pins and while pinning me into a shirt waist, she would 
talk to me. With a few words at a time she slowly 
opened my mind to one thing after another. And I, 
when I found that I could ask questions, that it was 
neither improper nor would I be thought a fool, became 
as greedy as little Fan in her reading. There were so 
many things that I wanted to know. I wanted to know 
about our race, about myself, about the Irish on Cherry 
Street, about the shop. The questions went tumbling^ll 
over each other in my mind and in my speech. But she 
interpreted each one. I did not need to worry about my 
English. She looked at me, and she seemed to under- 
stand me better than I understood myself. And I too 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 281 

soon learned to understand her. I became sensitive to 
her every motion and expression. 

It appeared that there was a reason for everything. 
Things were not thrown into the world in a haphazard 
way. She told me something of the history of the Irish 
people, of their joys, of their sorrows, of their humour, 
of their bitter struggle to free themselves. And grad- 
ually I lost my fear of the Irish on Cherry Street. She 
explained my own race to me. She explained the shop. 
What a revelation ! The men's conduct in the shop could 
be explained! "Just look," she would say, "what are 
their lives? You know, sweating from early to late, 
some haven't even their families here. Talking? It is 
perhaps the only joy within their reach. I suppose it 
is a kind of joy, and when you work like an animal you 
live like an animal." So I began to see tailors in a 
different light. The new world she opened to me did 
not make me sad. On the contrary, it had been far 
more sad to see things happen and not to understand. 

All this time the life of all of us together in the shop 
was continuing as in a dream. It was like a dream to 
be working only from eight o'clock until five with an 
hour for lunch. For lunch one of us three young girls 
would get off a little earlier and make cocoa for all. We 
each paid ten cents a week toward it and two cents a 
day to Fan for the fruit which she bought. And it was 
like a dream to sit down to a prettily set table with blue 
dishes, and bright silver, which Miss Wald placed for our 
use. I did not at once fit in with this new life. I would 
sit a little distance away from the table and brood. I 
longed to be with them, but something seemed to hold me 
back. At five o'clock when we stopped work one of us 
three younger girls had to sweep up. When my turn 
came I told her with tears that I did not want to 



282 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

sweep. Sweeping was housework and housework out- 
side of your own home was degrading. You were looked 
down upon, you were a servant. And so she would talk 
to me and would reason with me as my mother had done 
when I was a child. "No work was high or low," she 
would explain to me ; "all work is honourable if honestly 
done." 

Then I developed a feeling of deep jealousy. I could 
not bear the thought that all the other girls were as much 
to her as I was. Having found her I wanted to keep 
her all to myself. But soon she drew me into the group. 

On Saturday Fan and I did not work at all because 
it was our Sabbath. Now I would have been willing to 
work for my religious scruples were gone. But my 
parents would on no conditions consent to it so I was 
off both days and Fan too, but the rest worked the half 
day. And after it, on many mild afternoons, we all went 
to the park. Always it was wonderful to me to hear 
Miss O'There explain things. There was always some- 
thing new in the way she saw them. Always there was 
a touch of seriousness under everything. She treated us 
all as if we were her little sisters, and taught and guided 
us. We led a sweet life. 

We received very little money, a dollar, a dollar and 
a half, two dollars a week. At this I wondered for I 
did not know what this little shop meant, that it was 
established to teach me and the others a trade, and that 
what little money we did receive was merely meant to 
encourage us, or help our families. I did not know. 
Perhaps it would have been better if I had known. I 
might have tried harder for its success. Having been 
trained to work under the lash of a whip, it is a question 
whether I was fit to be left entirely to my honour. What 
was true of me was I think true of the other girls too. 






OUT OF THE SHADOW 283 

At any rate, one day when I had worked at the shop 
about a year, Miss Wald and Miss OThere were locked 
up all afternoon in the little blue fitting room. At five 
o'clock we learned that the shop could not pay for itself. 
We all wept at the news. And soon we were scattered 
all over the city, placed at work for which we were best 
fitted, or wherever there happened to be an opening. I 
had kept with some neatness the materials on the shelf 
in our little shop, so I was placed as a stock keeper in a 
Fifth Avenue dressmaking establishment. I had great 
difficulty to keep my job with the few words of English 
I knew how to read and write. But the work fascinated 
me because I had to use a pencil instead of a needle. 
Using a pencil meant "education" ! So I begged Madame 
to be patient with me. Here I learned some new words 
and a little spelling while labelling the stock. 

We worked regular hours. But often the girls had to 
stay overtime, for which they received twenty-five cents 
supper money. We worked from eight until seven. We 
entered the brownstone building through the basement, 
felt about in a pitch-dark closet where we hung our 
clothes, and stood about in the dark hall adjoining the 
kitchen and peeped in curiously at Madame's coloured 
domestic help hustling about, until we heard the bell up- 
stairs tinkle for us. 

The dressmakers were three sisters. The oldest was 
a large woman with grey hair, stern face, and an uneasy 
self-conscious look in her eyes. She had charge of the 
waist lining. She kept her girls about her in a group 
and her face never relaxed for a moment to any of them. 
The youngest had charge of the waists. She was small 
and pretty and I never heard her speak harshly to a girl. 
The middle sister was Madame K. She was good looking 
and she had a tall, slender, pretty form. When she came 



284 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

into the room all the heads bent lower over their work. 
It was then that the uneasy self-conscious look came into 
the grey sister's eyes. Yet I did not think Madame K. 
unkind. She was the only one who, it seemed to me, 
understood how really difficult for me was the work I 
was doing. While she was often impatient and spoke 
harshly she was also sometimes kind. After I had worked 
a couple of weeks I asked her whether I was doing any 
better ; I was anxious that she should not be the loser by 
having kept me. "Why, yes," she said in her brisk man- 
ner. Then she looked at me and her busy fingers, which 
were draping a piece of silk, stopped for a moment. 
Madame K. rarely took time to look at any one. "Why," 
she said, "you are a queer little thing!" She said it as 
if she were seeing me for the first time. 

Her admitting that I was doing better meant much 
to me. It helped me keep the job as long as I did, for 
I had to put up with hardship and a great deal of hu- 
miliation. I missed the congenial spirit of our little 
Settlement shop, all for one and one for all. Here it was 
more as in the sweatshop, each one for himself. I had 
not made friends with any of the girls. All but one of 
them were Americans. When I made blunders they 
could only stare at me, and I thought them proud and 
unkind. This one girl was Irish and when I had learned 
to understand her and her brogue I liked her. She 
worked on the skirts and she often came into the stock 
room to baste on a large table that stood there. She kept 
her book of measurements open before her. I glanced at 
it curiously one day. "Do you know how to write these ?" 
She caught me up. 

"Not these things," I pointed to the fractions. 

"Well, you better learn," she said. "One of these days 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 285 

Madame will call you into the fitting room to write the 
measurements, and if you don't know how " 

That day I spent the half hour lunch period writing 
fractions. It was in this way that I liked best to learn 
because I could see the use for the thing I was learning. 

Of the greatest interest to me here perhaps were the 
garments. From these I tried to get an idea of the 
wealth in the world and the lives of the wealthy people. 
As light and as flimsy as some of these garments were, 
their expensiveness was evident and suggested to my 
imagination heaps of gold coins. Everything seemed an 
occasion for the wealthy and there was a garment for 
each occasion, a dinner gown, a tea gown, a morning 
gown, an afternoon gown, an evening gown, an opera 
gown, a ball gown, a street gown. Some of the cus- 
tomers fitted two and three at a time. When did they 
wear them all? What else did they do beside attending 
balls and dinners? 

At fitting time it was my part to take the garment 
from the girls and carry it into the fitting room to Ma- 
dame K. So I soon began to know many of the cus- 
tomers by sight. Their looks and bearing did not sug- 
gest simple homes. I pictured mansions and hosts of 
servants. My reading helped me in the picture making. 

The stock room was a little dark room that served 
also as a passage between the work room and the fitting 
rooms. A heavy portiere hung at one door, hiding the 
work room from the fitting room. Looking into these 
two different rooms was like looking into two different 
worlds. In one, the work room, the girls sat with their 
heads bent, muscles tense, faces dull or absorbed, stitch- 
ing silently. Here it was always silent, for either one 
of the sisters was always there, or both. The faces and 
the clothes of the girls suggested their life, the life that 



286 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

I knew. In the other room, through the portiere, many 
hours of the day one woman or another would be stand- 
ing before the long mirrors gazing at herself. Beside 
her Madame K. kneeled with the long train of her black 
silk dress spread behind her on the green carpet. Here 
there was always a light babbling which I could not help 
overhearing. There were often little bursts of con- 
fidences. "I know I looked well last night, because the 
women were asking me whether I was not growing fat." 
Usually it was on clothes. "Yes, I like my hat and it was 
a bargain this time. It was only sixty- four dollars " 

"Sixty-four dollars! — Father would have to work six 
weeks for sixty dollars. I received four dollars a week." 
It came quite natural to figure it so. But I felt no envy 
and no resentment. 

I worked here until Christmas or rather over Christ- 
mas. Christmas Eve two of the girls had to stay over 
time to finish a gown. That night I sat in the little 
darkened stock room and waited to pack it; downstairs 
I knew the coloured man was waiting to deliver it. From 
where I sat I could see the whole workroom, dark except 
for the one corner where the two girls sat bending over 
the white satin gown between them. One of the girls was 
weeping. I had often thought her proud, but now she did 
not look a bit proud, she looked so human and loveable. 
Tears were running down her little straight nose. When- 
ever the tears came she would turn away a little that 
they might not fall on the small pink roses she was stitch- 
ing on to the hem. She reminded me of the many times 
I had been felling sleeve lining until late at night after 
the other workers were gone. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 287 



LX 

And now I went to the factory to make use of the 
trade I learned in the Settlement shop. Miss OThere 
found me a place. I learned that to find a job it was not 
necessary to go from factory to factory. Instead you 
read the advertisements in the newspapers. And strange 
enough, the printed names and addresses turned out to 
be of "real people." Miss OThere, who came with me, 
inquired for me. Yes, shirt waist makers were wanted, 
and I was "taken on." 

I followed a forewoman through long aisles of sew- 
ing machines till she placed me at a machine in the middle 
of the loft and showed me how to work the treadle. It 
was run by steam power. I pressed my foot, there was 
a terrific noise, and I did not hear the forewoman go. 
Then something made me turn my head and I looked up 
and found her standing at my machine. So it was all 
day. 

She brought me a bundle of work and told me to 
make up a sample waist. 

I worked very carefully. I measured the centrepiece 
with a tape measure I brought. I made dainty French 
seams and stitched with a small round stitch. I felt 
confident. In our little Settlement shop I had worked 
on silks, French flannels and fine chambray. This was 
ordinary material. 

Shortly before noon I finished the waist. I was not 
mistaken. The forewoman looked pleased as she ex- 
amined it. She turned to me. "This is beautiful !" she 
said. "But, my dear girl, working like this you won't 
earn your salt. Do you know what these waists pay?" 



288 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

I shook my head. "A dollar and a quarter a dozen." I 
was dumb with surprise. She looked at me a moment. 
"What you need," she said, "is speed! I'll show you 
how to work !" I rose and she sat down at the machine. 
She lengthened the stitch to three times the size, her 
back bent over, her eyes fastened on the machine, her 
hands flew, and the machine whirred. She seemed to 
become one with it. I remembered this picture later. 
It was the typical picture of a sewing machine operator. 

I worked a few days, then I was sent away. I was not 
worth the machine and space I occupied. In my place 
they could have a woman turning out a dozen and a half 
waists a day. So now I went from factory to factory 
trying to acquire speed. I worked a day here, a few days 
there, till they found me out. It is as hard to become a 
botcher as a good worker and I was often discouraged 
and despondent. The thought, "What is it all about — 
what is it for?" came rather often. To turn out a good 
piece of work had been a satisfaction. Its place now 
was taken by : "How many more waists can I do to-day 
than yesterday?" But how long can this kind of thing 
satisfy one? 

At last I came to the immense shirt waist factory 
of F. Brothers. Here I had applied as a tucker in the 
hope that by specialising I would do better. The fore- 
woman soon noticed, no doubt, that I was not a tucker 
and needing "a hand" on one of her special machines, 
she asked me if I would like to try it and told me its 
merits. A "hand" who could earn a good day's wages 
would have hesitated to accept. But what had I to lose ? 
I had not yet earned three dollars a week as a shirt waist 
maker. If I had not had my people and my home, where 
would I have been now? And besides, I was always 
eager for new experiences. It turned out to be an eight 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 289 

needle tucking machine. I was at once delighted and 
fascinated by it. A machine that could make eight 
tucks in almost the time that it took to make one ! The 
strain on my eyes was terrific. I had to watch eight 
needles instead of one, but then, I told myself, I would 
earn several times more than I would have otherwise! 
"What a wonderful inventor! What a wonderful ma- 
chine l" I soon learned, however, that I was paid no more 
than if I were making one tuck ! 

But the machine continued to interest me, and I was 
doing here better than I had yet done. So when there 
was an opening I brought my sister and settled myself 
down to stay. Sister was put to make shirt waists at 
the extreme end of the block long loft and I in a group 
of several other eight and five needle tuckers, stood in the 
middle of it. And now all day long I sat feeding white 
lawn and eight pin tucks came out. All day hundreds of 
yards of lawn slipped over my table and fell into a large 
basket. At first I dared not lift my eyes from the 
needles. In the evening my eyes smarted and my back 
ached. But when I learned to understand my machine I 
did not have to watch so closely. I could tell by the 
sound it made when a needle grew dull, when a thread 
broke, when a stitch slipped. Every different trouble 
made its own different sound. And as I watched my ma- 
chine from day. to day it seemed to me like a human being. 
When I did not take care of it, oil it, clean it, it did not 
work properly. I began to love my machine and in my 
mind I called it my partner because it helped me to earn 
my six dollars. 

We were piece workers. Some of the girls who could 
work without lifting their eyes earned more than six 
dollars. That was how my sister worked. But I could 
not do that ! Indeed, I did not want to. I did not want 



290 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

to become like my machine. So while I fed it the lawn 
I listened, and looked about a little and thought over 
what I saw. From where I sat I could see the whole 
floor from end to end. I saw hundreds and hundreds 
of girls bending over sewing machines. The floor vi- 
brated, beat steadily like a pulse with the steam power. 
The air was filled with the whirr. I had to keep my head 
low to distinguish the noise of my own machine and we 
girls shouted and watched each other's lips when we 
talked. But we did not talk much! Right in front of 
me at a big table stood a large stout woman with a red 
handsome face. She was the head forewoman. All 
day long she stood or sat at the table draughting pat- 
terns, drinking beer with her head bent under the table, 
and watching us. There were also assistant forewomen, 
and foremen and assistant foremen, and superintendents 
and assistant superintendents. They were all watching 
us. The "bosses" we only saw once a day pass through 
the aisles. One was round shouldered with a little black 
beard and a cross eye. He walked through quickly with 
his head bent and a preoccupied look on his face. The 
other boss was straight and tall and he wore a grey 
French beard. He walked leisurely with his head in the 
air and looked about. 

One day we heard that one of our bosses had gone to 
Europe. When after some months he returned to the 
factory there was a celebration. The steam power was 
turned off and the assistant forewomen announced that 
downstairs in the salesrooms there was cake and wine 
and music. But few besides the forewomen went down. 
We remained sitting at our machines talking to each 
other. Our own voices sounded strange to us in the quiet 
and we felt self-conscious. 

Soon the forewomen returned and each one of us 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 291 

received a sealed little envelope with her number on it. 
We were all called here by the numbers of our machines. 
My machine and I were 93. 

In the little envelope each one of us three hundred 
employes found a little trinket in Roman gold. 

When the head forewoman returned her face was 
redder than usual and beaming with joy. She had re- 
ceived a curiously made ivory cross. She called us to 
her table and showed it to us. She raised her hand for 
attention and we all pressed to the table. She cried, "It 
is no wonder they are so prosperous. They are so good 
to us ! God is blessing them !" Some of the girls looked 
at her in bewilderment and listened doubtfully. The year 
before, two weeks after the gifts had been received, the 
prices had been cut, a quarter of a cent on a yard of 
hemstitching, five cents on a hundred yards of tucking, 
twenty-five cents on a dozen waists. 



292 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LXI 



I was eighteen when I met L. V. I had come home 
from work, had supper, and sat on the stoop looking into 
the street when suddenly a small dog jumped into my 
lap. I stood up so quickly that he fell like a bundle at my 
feet. Then I saw that he was on a chain and tugging at 
the end of it was a small, dark young man. He slapped 
the little dog. "I am so sorry!" he said. I saw that his 
eyes were not serious. I said I was all right. I brushed 
my skirt and sat down again, and he raised his hat and 
led the little dog away. 

The little animal I knew belonged to our neighbour 
in the front, a middle-aged, childless woman who repaired 
wigs for her living. "Who was the young man?" None 
of our men raised their hats like that and from the few 
words of English he had spoken I understood that he was 
not only an American but a person of education. 

He came back in a few minutes and stopped near the 
stoop and I knew that he would talk to me and I sat 
there. The dog soon made it possible. He kept pulling 
at the chain toward me. I had sometimes stopped to pat 
him. "Does he know you?" the young man asked. I 
said, "Yes." So we began to talk. He told me that 
he had come from Chicago to visit his aunt. 

The next evening when I came out on the stoop he too 
soon came and again I let him talk to me. I had never 
before spoken to a young man to whom I had not been 
introduced. Yet this seemed all right and I spoke to him 
as if I were in my own house. To the house I did not ask 
him. It was nothing unusual to receive "company" on 
the street. In fact it was often the only place. It was 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 293 

hard to entertain guests in the one room. For the little 
dark bedroom was filled with clothing and folding cots 
and the extra bedding and other things, and the little 
dark hole of a kitchen was out of the question. So 
there was really only the one room. And this was the 
living room of seven of us. Here we slept, and washed, 
and dressed, and ate. We had to make great prepara- 
tions to receive a stranger. Now it was not as when 
we were little. We felt conscious of the inevitable dirt 
and the dinginess and the broken up furniture and felt 
ashamed. 

So we met on the stoop. L. V. told me he had been to 
many places. And I was proud to tell him what I knew 
of life outside of Cherry Street. I told him of the 
people and White Birch Farm. He showed surprise 
to meet any one here who knew anything outside of 
the old customs. Our common knowledge outside of 
here was at once like a relationship between us and 
seemed to separate us a little from the rest. 

My parents saw me talking to the young man and 
they smiled at each other. The aunt also saw. Then 
one day I noticed that my mother was no longer smiling 
and she told me that L. V.'s aunt felt it her duty to 
tell us about her nephew. "He was really not a bad 
young man, but he got in with the Christians, with the 
missioners !" the aunt explained. At this my heart be- 
gan to beat so quickly that it pained. I felt a foreboding 
of coming trouble. Soon I learned that L. V. was bap- 
tised and that the missionaries were training him for 
their own profession. 

By now L. V. was coming into the house and I con- 
tinued to see him as before. But to my parents now 
there was all the difference in the world. A Jew who 
forsook his own religion, his own people, was worse 



294 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

than a Gentile, worse than a heathen. He was an "apos- 
tate." He was a disgrace! Supposing the neighbours 
learned who the young man was; that their daughter 
went about with an outcast ! For he who forsook Judaism 
for another religion belonged nowhere. He may be bap- 
tised a thousand times to the Christian he is still "The 
Jew" and his own people can only pray to God to have 
pity on him. If, then, it should become known that their 
daughter associated with a "meshumad ,, (apostate), the 
whole family would be disgraced. And what would her 
chance of marriage be ! And marriage was all important. 
As a specimen of a daughter I was a disappointment. 
First there had been the illness, then disobedience and 
queer notions, and what kind of an influence was I for 
the children? Clearly, then, it would be a blessing if I 
were married. And then, too, I was already eighteen. 
And it was really high time, the two younger girls were 
coming up very fast. 

As to myself, I felt bewildered. Between my parents 
and the young man and my own feelings and ideas which 
seemed all tangled up, I could not easily distinguish one 
thing from another. To break friendship because his 
ideas happened to be different seemed narrow-minded. 
And I did not want to be narrow-minded. I also felt 
that my parents must allow me to judge for myself. 
And they must trust me. But they would do neither. 
Father, as of old, wanted me to submit to him in the old 
custom. His opposition antagonised me now more than 
ever. I fought against him with all my strength. Mother 
hinted that I drop the acquaintance with L. V. but I 
ignored it. Father commanded and I refused. Of 
course, they could do nothing. They even had to smile 
that neighbours might not guess. But what trouble there 
was within our four walls! 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 295 

In the meantime I learned to know L. V. better and 
better. He talked religion just as the woman missionary 
in the hospital had talked. It sounded like a lesson 
learnt by heart. Then, too, there was a certain lightness 
about everything he said. Always the eyes lacked seri- 
ousness and the lips almost smiled as if life were a joke. 
I felt dreadfully troubled. 

One Saturday he came to our house with a young 
man friend of his and introduced him. I little thought 
that day to what his introduction would lead later. 

It was late in the afternoon and our candlesticks which, 
we placed on the table Friday night still stood there. We 
would not touch them until it grew dark and at least 
three stars were out. Only the very orthodox Jews 
observe this custom. But in our house father made us all 
observe it, no matter what other customs were neglected. 
L. V/s friend noticed it with surprise. He said he had 
not been to such a strictly orthodox looking house since 
he had come to this country ten years before. I could 
see that he looked at us all with pity. Knowing L. V.'s 
ideas on religion, he understood what trouble we were 
all in. 

I had never seen L. V. before with other people except 
with those of my own family. He and his friend dis- 
cussed politics and religion. And I sat and listened and 
watched them. They were so different. L. V., as always, 
spoke jestingly about everything. The friend was seri- 
ous, yet he could jest too. He was very outspoken, al- 
most blunt. I liked him. 

When they were gone mother looked at me with her 
pleading eyes and said, "Now, do you see the difference ?" 
Something within me seemed to harden in a moment. 
And I said, "No, I can't see any difference. ,, 

What would have happened I cannot tell, but he 



296 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

soon left for Chicago to prepare to go to a theological 
seminary out West and we began to correspond. And 
now an unexpected joy came into my life. Writing! 
And here again, as with the other things that I had 
learned, it seemed accidental. It is to this correspondence 
that I owe a great deal of what I learned of writing in 
English. With the help of the children I could read and 
write script myself now. All day long then at the ma- 
chine, I thought over what I would say, and looked for- 
ward to the evening when I could write. This to me 
was not like writing a sentence which no one would ever 
see. The thought that what I wrote would be read and 
weighed and thought about filled me with excitement. 
So I wrote and re-wrote my letters using up a great deal 
of paper. Months passed, and one day I was filled with 
joy and pride. I realised quite suddenly that I had 
learned to read and write well enough to do the corre- 
sponding myself. 

In the spring L. V. returned to the city to start West. 
One day he told me that he loved me and asked me to 
wait for him two years. I thought of my parents and 
I could not help weeping at the suffering I must cause 
them. But I also thought it right for me to do what 
I thought was right. I saw my life so empty without 
the letters. "Surely, that was love." And I promised to 
wait. 

He went away and again he began to correspond. 
How joyfully I greeted the first letter that came! I 
knew and loved every line and curve of the simple, clear 
handwriting. I spent a great deal of time in copying 
the phrases that pleased me. I gave these letters most 
of my time and thought. I almost lived for them. 

In his letters, L. V. sometimes told me of boyish 
escapades, flirtations, but as long as letters came noth- 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 297 

ing mattered. Sometimes when I thought it over it 
seemed queer that it did not matter. Sometimes, too, I 
tried to think of myself married, but I could not picture 
myself married to him or any one else. I liked the com- 
panionship of men, but the thought of marriage often 
filled me with fear, even with disgust. So the sweatshop 
left its mark. 



298 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LXII 

Father felt relieved when L. V. was gone. Upon 
the correspondence he chose to look as "nonsense." He 
thought if he showed he looked upon it — the correspond- 
ence and the promise to wait — as nonsense, it would 
soon, in my mind too, be "nonsense," and come to noth- 
ing. 

But it was not at all so. I arranged my life now, or 
it arranged itself, in some sort of a systematic way. 
This was the end of June; I soon left for White Birch 
Farm. Since that first summer I continued to go there 
every summer though my health was better now. I had 
many little responsibilities there by now, and both Irene 
and I felt a part of the place, and it was so that we were 
looked upon by the doctor and Miss Farly. Not to go 
there now that I was well never occurred to me. I even 
thought that it was fortunate for my people that I could 
go. Since I was no comfort to them, the less I was 
home the better. And as for me, the very thought of 
that sweet, quiet life out there was a joy. 

When winter came I went back to my tucking machine. 
In the evening I wrote my letters and read a good deal. 
I went out little. I wanted passionately to be "true." 

On a Sunday or an evening during the week I would 
go to see Miss O'There, who lived in Brooklyn. I would 
walk to and across the bridge thinking over all I wanted 
to talk to her about. But often when I came near the 
little house my courage failed me. I was in constant 
fear of meeting strangers, and I would turn and walk 
back. One night what I feared happened. 

Once when I came and she opened the door for me, I 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 299 

heard voices, laughing and talking. I wanted at once to 
run away. I knew that some of the girls who were visit- 
ing her were teachers, and some were still attending 
normal college. I thought, What have I in common with 
them ? What can I say to them ? What can they have to 
say to me ? And I mumbled that now that I had seen her 
I would go home. She looked at me, and there was a 
twinkle in her eyes. I could never hide anything from 
her. The next moment she begged me earnestly to meet 
the girls. 

"Stay and make friends of them." 

And I begged her, "Not yet, wait till I learn a little 
more." 

"But they too will be learning," she said. "Do you 
suppose they will stand still ? Come, you will learn from 
them. And, Ruth, you too might have something to 
teach them." 

The next moment she opened the door. "Meet my 
friend," she said, and I saw five girls of about my own 
age stand up. Through the years each one has become 
so dear to me, and I do not know where to begin and 
what to say. I can tell of that first evening only. I 
did not get their names, but in the course of the evening 
each one did something different and it was so that I 
remembered them later. Three of the girls were sisters; 
the eldest, an athletic-looking girl, with a wealth of 
brown hair and a hearty laugh, played the piano. The 
next sister, who bubbled with enthusiasm, sang Scotch 
songs and the youngest, with fine dark eyes and her hair 
still in a braid, read aloud from "Margaret Ogilvy" by 
J. M. Barrie. The fourth girl had a sweet voice and sang 
German songs. And the fifth, a quiet girl, would every 
now and then say something in her quiet way and there 
would be a burst of laughter. But they did not perform 



300 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

all evening. They also talked. They talked about the 
theatre, the opera (foreign language to me). They 
talked about school and college. The labour champion 
was there, they talked about labour. There seemed to 
be no end to their knowledge and their plans. They even 
talked in a dreamy way about taking a trip to Europe 
when all the girls should graduate and earn money. Miss 
O'There was with them in all their dreams and her white- 
haired mother was as young as the rest. 

After this the girls would hunt me up and make me 
join them. One of the sisters helped me to a little 
more systematic study. 

Besides these girls there were my old friends, the 
women I met through the hospital, whom I would visit. 
Most of them were unhappy in some way or another, 
and tried to forget. They and their lives still fascinated 
me. There was one who lived in one of the most beauti- 
ful homes there are in the city. She gave me the New 
Testament, which I still have, and would talk to me of 
the "Simple Life." 

There was another, a very charming woman. I used 
to hear her friends say of her with a great show of 
enthusiasm: "Those big rough men at the church are 
like putty in her hands." She felt she knew the 
working people's lives. Yet she used to invite me to 
come and see her at the queerest hour, six o'clock, when 
I would be coming from work. I could no longer listen 
without criticism, and it was often hard to go from their 
homes to my own. 

But there was one whom I loved to visit. She was 
twenty-five, and she was a mixture of three different 
nationalities, German, French and American. She was 
so good and so beautiful that it seemed she inherited only 
the best qualities of the three nations. She showed 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 301 

frankly that she knew nothing about the working people 
and that she was curious. She could never stop wonder- 
ing at my going out alone at night. She had never been 
out without a chaperon. She would often urge me to 
put on a veil. 

"At least," she once said, "put it on when you come to 
your own neighbourhood." 

I laughed at her and assured her that I was safer in 
my own neighbourhood than in hers. 

"In your neighbourhood," I said, "there are so few 
people in the street and the houses stand so dark and 
still." 

To her, I, too, would talk frankly. And we often got 
into arguments. She defended her people and I defended 
mine. She talked of refinement and culture. I was at 
a loss. What was refinement and culture? She ex- 
plained to me simply, "When for generations you live 
in a beautiful home, you are surrounded by beautiful 
pictures, you listen to beautiful music, you eat good food, 
you are taken care of. Do you see?" 

I said that I saw, but it was all so puzzling. 

"It seems to me," I said, "that when a man, my father, 
works all day long, he ought to have a beautiful home, he 
ought to have good food, he too ought to get a chance 
to appreciate beautiful music. All day my father is mak- 
ing coats yet his own is so shabby, and my mother, if you 
ever saw her hands! Why should she know of nothing 
but scrubbing and scrimping? Why should her children 
go without an education?" 

Then her pretty forehead would pucker up ; she moved 
closer to me, if we were on the couch, her hand would 
clasp mine. 

"Yes, it does seem so," she would say thoughtfully. 

In this way a part of the two years passed in some- 



302 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

thing like a peaceful way. Then father noticed that I 
had not the least intention of dropping the correspond- 
ence and he felt ill treated and became bitter. "Good 
God," he complained to mother, "was it possible that the 
girl meant to keep up that nonsense?" He commanded 
me to drop writing the letters. I refused, and our troub- 
les began once more. Now he fairly burnt me with his 
anger and I thought him cruel and was more relieved 
than ever when summer came and I could escape to the 
country. Father hated to see me go there. He was in 
constant fear that I would forget whatever little there 
was in me that bound me to my race. And this year, it 
was the second, my father whom I remembered so gentle, 
cursed me as I was leaving and I went from home for 
the three months without a word of farewell to him. 
Mother ran after me into the hall. She suffered more 
than any of us from these ruptures. She begged me 
not to leave my father without a kind word. But I would 
not even look back. She turned back into the house 
weeping and I went into a strange hallway and wept 
too at all our misery. 

When I returned home in the autumn I could not hold 
out against father, and I finally had to give up the letters, 
but of L. V. I heard through a friend. What those let- 
ters really meant to me I only now understood. 

The letters out of the way, father gave me a few 
weeks to forget and then began to consult matchmakers. 
Several nights a week now on coming home from work 
I would find a matchmaker and a young man. Father 
no longer kept a secret my friendship with L. V. He 
was in terror about it. He began to consult friends and 
relatives and they all seemed to combine against me. 
Wherever I went to visit now I was sure to find a young 
man, and the relative or friend acting as matchmaker. 




IT WAS A ONE-DOOR STORE. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 303 

The younger and seemingly more enlightened friends 
would argue. "What are you waiting for? You are 
wasting your best years. You are losing your best 
chances.' , A lawyer we knew, a very nice man, who mar- 
ried money to establish an office, said, "There is no love!" 
And still others spoke with pity. "You are chasing after 
a shadow ! This is not the age for religion. The young 
man is a mercenary, he is not sincere, he is being sup- 
ported by missionaries. He is selling his soul for an 
easy life! There are others like him." 

And father would demand, "What do you want any- 
way ? The young man you saw last night is worthy ten 
of your kind, with your queer notions. He has fifty 
tailors working for him. He will give you a home with 
carpet on the floor, a servant and a piano." 

I would answer. "I promised to wait." 

But sometimes there were moments when I was tempt- 
ed. A home! A piano! But was this all I wanted? 
And what was love? Now I knew that I still did not 
know. 

With all my troubles I went to Miss OThere whom 
I gave my every thought, and she even in her affection 
never failed to tell me the truth. These moments were 
always painful to both of us, for I was so often wrong. 

One night in the spring when I came to her — it was 
the end of the second year, and I was complaining of the 
old life and customs and father's treatment — I suddenly 
noticed that she was all upset and I stopped talking quite 
abruptly. I suddenly felt guilty and uneasy without 
knowing why. 

"You are always complaining about your father," she 
said, "his selfishness, his narrow-mindedness, his hard- 
ness. And soon summer will come and you will go away 
to the country. Every summer, no matter where you are, 



3£4 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

what you are doing, you leave your work and you go 
away while the rest remain here sweating. Do you give 
a thought how your family lives here without your help?" 

I felt horrified. I never saw it in that way before. 

She went on. 

"You say he is scrimping, he demands your board 
whether you work the week or not; he lives for money. 
One has to live for something. His ideas? Right or 
wrong, according to him, you have been a disappoint- 
ment. He had placed all his hopes in you, his oldest 
daughter. Who knows what this disappointment may 
have meant to him?" 

So I gave up White Birch Farm. At first life seemed 
hardly worth living. All day now lost in the clattering 
noise of the machine there was nothing to which to look 
forward. Now it would always be so, feeding, feeding 
the machine. And then the night. The nights were the 
worst. 

I had forgotten what it was like in the hot summer. 
There were five of us, the two boys in one cot and we 
three girls in the other, in the one room filled with the 
odour of cooking, of kerosene oil, the smell of grimy 
clothes, of stale perspiration, the heat of the body; at 
first as I lay with my two sisters in the sagging cot, with 
an unconscious limb of one or the other thrown over me, 
I wept. Then I thought, Why need it be so? Why? 
And later little by little I became used to it and at my 
machine I would live certain moments in the country 
over again. I would imagine myself in the grove. I 
heard the children's voices. Under the trees were the 
red and green benches I had helped to make. I walked 
down to the brook and sat on the rock from which I used 
to dive and listen to the quiet. I smelt the grasses grow- 
ing on the edge; I felt the cool, moist air on my face, 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 305 

I sat perfectly still. From far out came a familiar shrill, 
cheerful call "Bob- White !" And I was not so unhappy. 
I saw that I could still visit White Birch Farm. I was 
helping my people and my friend's approval meant much 
to me. 

In August it was slack in our shop. It was slack in all 
trades. Miss O'There urged that I deserved a vacation, 
so I packed a few things and went to White Birch Farm, 
and was heartily welcomed. Again I was in my little 
room with the pale, blue walls and the window looking 
into the green trees. Again I played with the children 
in the shade of the grove. I bathed in the brook, I 
wandered about in the fields. But what was it ? I could 
not find the joy of the other years. Wherever I looked 
I seemed to see Cherry Street. I could not shut it out. 
I saw the children on the hot and none-too-clean side- 
walks, the fire escapes littered with bedclothes, overheat- 
ed sickly infants, tired out women. The sight of the 
beautiful green fields irritated me. And I went home in 
spite of Miss O'There's letter urging me to stay, of the 
forewoman's letter telling me that there was still no 
work, in spite of Miss Farly's arguments. I felt strange- 
ly glad to be home and share the good and the bad with 
my people. 



306 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LXIII 

One day in the third year I met L. V.'s friend. I 
had seen him twice since the first time he had been in- 
troduced. Once during the first year he came on receiving 
a letter from L. V. asking him to come. Because he was 
L. V.'s friend I too looked upon him almost as a friend. 
I felt no awkwardness in talking to him. I asked him 
that night to come again. But he never came. And I 
never saw him until I met him now in the street. I was 
so glad, he was L. V.'s friend! To him I could talk 
of L. V., whose image was growing more and more 
vague in my mind. And the more vague it became the 
more I wanted to think and talk of him. His friend 
guessed how it was. He watched me curiously, and 
smiled as if he were a little amused. We walked about 
and we talked. We talked of books we had read. He 
was a Russian and he had some education in that lan- 
guage. English he had picked up in some such way as 
a hen gathered food, a crumb here and a crumb there. 
He was extremely well read in both Russian and English. 

I asked him to call. But again I never saw him until 
we met once more by accident. And again we walked 
and talked all evening. This time, when he was leaving 
me at my door, I did not ask him to come and he asked 
me quite suddenly in his blunt way, "Why?" I felt 
confused and did not know what to answer. He bent 
and looked at me and then threw his head back and 
laughed. I left him abruptly and went in. The next 
night, to my surprise, he came up to our home! He 
stayed all evening and talked to father about his work 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 307 

and father looked pleasanter than he had been for a 
long while. 

After this he came often and brought books. 

Once almost two weeks passed and he did not come. 
Then we met, by accident, as I thought. It seemed to 
me he looked thinner and I asked, "Were you ill ?" 

"Oh, no!" he said, and added, after a moment, with- 
out looking at me, in his blunt way, "It is just this, I am 
not ready to get married.' ' 

I stared at him a long minute before the full meaning 
dawned on me. I felt my face flush. I was indignant. 

"So sure is this young man." 

He noticed my discomfiture. 

"Oh, you know how these things end," he said. "At 
least I do," he smiled. 

I felt calmer by now and decided to deal with the 
young man. 

"By all means this must end, if you feel there is danger 
for you. Of course," I assured him, "there is none for 
me. 

To my surprise he looked anything but happy, at which 
my spirits rose. 

"Let us say good night at once," I said cheerfully. 

"I see," he said crossly; "you are only too eager." 

I laughed and we walked in silence for some moments. 
Then an idea occurred to me at which I could not help 
laughing. 

"I have a bright idea," I said. "Let us be friends. 
But as soon as one of us feels the least bit of danger 
for himself he must tell the other at once." 

"That is brilliant," he said in Yiddish, and laughed 
too. "But remember if it should be you!" 

"I'll tell," I assured him, and laughingly we parted. 

And now we saw each other often. We would go to 



308 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

lectures, often we would go for long walks and talk 
nonsense. He said I was too serious and teased me until 
I had to laugh. One day he asked me to go to the 
theatre with him, but of course I would not go. Be- 
sides, he had once said that women generally liked men 
for what they could get from them. I was very touchy 
on the subject of my sex and I meant to teach him to 
have a different opinion. I would not take anything 
from him, at which he looked miserable and I thought 
it an excellent punishment and a good lesson. Then a 
time came when he began to demand to know what I 
had for supper and would insist on my coming to a 
restaurant. He said I looked hungry and I would be 
indignant and accuse him of trying to "boss" me. If I 
had allowed myself now I would have been happy. But 
how could I ? When I thought of L. V. I felt miserable 
and guilty. He had not returned at the end of the second 
year. But now it was almost three years and he must 
surely soon come. What would I say to him? 

When he came I explained as well as I could. 

One night in the spring a year later, D. C. and I were 
taking a long walk. It was windy and we walked with 
our heads a little bent. I thought that he scarcely talked, 
and he had remarked that I was so silent. At ten o'clock 
we stood on the stoop before our door. He was still 
silent. Suddenly I could not have told what came over 
me. I said: "I think our friendship better cease here. ,, 
No sooner did I utter the words and he looked at me 
than I remembered the agreement we had once made in 
jest and I could see that he too remembered it. I felt 
panic-stricken. I rushed to the door, pulled it open and 
ran through the dark hall, — the gas was already out. 
I ran up a flight of stairs and there I stood, panting. The 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 309 

next moment I heard the door open, a quick footstep in 
the hall and my name : 

"Ruth!" 

I pressed my hand to my heart. He had never called 
me Ruth. 

"Please come down!" came from the foot of the 
stairs. 

"I can't," I said. 

"Just for a moment." 
1 can t. 

"I want to see your eyes." 

"Not to-night." 

"To-morrow then?" 

"Perhaps." 

"Good night ! Then I'll wait till you go in." 

A moment later I called : "I am in. Good night !" 

I found the house dark when I opened the door. From 
every corner came quiet breathing. I felt the way to 
my cot. Sister, too, was asleep. I sat down beside her, 
and sat still for a moment. I could almost hear my 
heart beating. Then I remembered that sister once won- 
dered how it felt to be happy. I touched her face, "Wake 
up!" I wanted to tell her that I knew. 



310 OUT OF THE SHADOW 



LXIV 

That summer work was slow in father's shop, and as 
he had at last saved a hundred dollars he thought, "When 
could there be a better opportunity to try business ?" So 
the fall found us established in two rooms in the back 
of a little grocery store and the whole family was bent 
on making a success. Sister was behind the counter, as 
she was the most competent and modem and really 
showed a knack for the business and father and mother 
did the rougher work and looked on. Now it was nec- 
essary and they must learn the modern ways, learn from 
the children. Father shook his head at this sadly, "What 
a strange world !" he said. 

At first the pennies came in so slowly that there was 
great fear for the long saved hundred dollars. But little 
by little business began to improve. Indeed, how could 
it be otherwise? Sister, who was so good and kind and 
sweet tempered, would wait on a little girl buying two 
cents' worth of milk with a courtesy as if she were buy- 
ing a dollar's worth. And father and mother and the 
younger girl and boy would, any of them, climb five 
flights of stairs at six o'clock in the morning with five 
cents' worth of rolls for a customer who bought nothing 
else. So trade was coming their way. The store soon 
became one of the most successful in the neighbourhood, 
and sister became very popular. The women told her 
their troubles, the children saved their pennies in her 
care. When she would pass through the block, from 
everywhere children would come dancing up to her, call- 
ing her name and greeting her affectionately. Every one 
loved and trusted her. 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 311 

But there was one trouble about this store. It threat- 
ened to absorb her whole life. As neither father nor 
mother could write or keep accounts she was completely 
tied down to the store. Father, who was happy to be 
making a living independent of the tailor shop, found 
it hard to see how she should care for anything else but 
the store. Nevertheless he began to learn how to write. 
Of an evening then, when business would be slow, he 
would sit down at the counter with pencil and paper 
and try to copy the letters or numbers we would write 
out for him. After poring over his slip of paper for a 
while he would look up, his forehead covered with per- 
spiration. Then he would lay down his pencil to rest 
his stiffened fingers and sigh, "It is hard to learn at my 
age, children, it is hard to learn." 

The boy, nineteen years old now, the one who had once 
dreamt of becoming a great Rabbi, was not in the store. 
He was bringing home the laurels. 

Though he was earnest and studious, at thirteen he 
still had two years of public school ahead of him, since 
he had begun late and what education he had was foreign. 
So, as he was of an extremely independent nature, and 
also perhaps because he wanted to see something of the 
world, he had made a great plea to be allowed to go to 
an agricultural school instead. There, he heard, he could 
finish his elementary education and earn his living by 
working in the fields after school hours and at the same 
time learn a trade. He would be an agriculturalist. And 
it was from that school that he graduated two years 
later. He was placed by the school with a Gentile farmer. 
It was Passover and he thought of home and felt lonely 
and strange. And one day he walked off to the station, 
carrying his little trunk on his shoulder — both were very 



312 OUT OF THE SHADOW 

small, the trunk and the boy — and for the present this was 
the end of farming. 

After this he worked as a grocery boy, a drug store 
boy, a boy at a newsstand, a delivery boy on Wanamak- 
er's wagons and through it all he had his troubles. He 
was so honest and outspoken that as he went along he 
made as many enemies as friends. Above all he dis- 
liked pity and patronage. One day while working on Mr. 
Wanamaker's wagon he delivered a ninety-eight cent 
parcel. The woman who received it at the door gave 
him a dollar and told him to keep the change. He said, 
a little huffily, I imagine, that he did not take "tips" and 
held out the two cents. She looked him up and down 
and shut the door in his face. So he laid the two pen- 
nies at her door and went away. Two days later there 
was a complaint of discourtesy against him and he was 
discharged. 

Because of his independence he was often in trouble 
but he managed somehow. He paid a certain amount 
into the house and the rest he saved always for some 
purpose of study. He often got into debt to the house 
but as soon as he would get work he would pay scrupu- 
lously every cent. 

During an interval of out of work he had learned 
bookkeeping and typewriting and this was his work now. 
While doing this he was also making Regents counts. 
And it was at this time that he took a Civil Service exam- 
ination and was appointed clerk in the Bureau of Educa- 
tion in Washington. His dream was to earn enough 
money to go to Columbia University. 

He realised his dream, and it was while in his last year 
at the university that he won the second prize in the 
"World Work" contest on "What the School Will Do 
for the Boy of To-morrow." From the material side this 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 313 

money came now as if in answer to his great need. He 
had nothing with which to pay his last year's tuition, and 
he was worried and discouraged. But far greater than 
the value of this money was the honour, for so we felt it 
to be. Mother had tears in her eyes. Her boy was at 
the great university! Her boy's article was valued sec- 
ond to that of a superintendent of Industrial Schools! 
And father looked on at us silently unbelieving; then he 
said, "Ah ! After all this is America." 



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